


Uncurling Lifelines

by lyres



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 07:05:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 46,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7090804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyres/pseuds/lyres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do the rings under my eyes make me look shady?”<br/>“No more than usual,” Musichetta said. “Worried about your image?”<br/>“About my customers.” Grantaire blew on his cup of coffee. “I mean, you'd get that, right? It's our business to be trustworthy.”<br/>“No, that's my business,” Musichetta corrected. “Your business is to <i>seem</i> trustworthy and never let people know that there's not a magically gifted bone in your body.” </p><p>(In which Grantaire pretends to have magic, Enjolras pretends not to, Jehan struggles to work out the morals of working as an alley witch, and Musichetta just wants to tell fortunes from the back of her kiosk in peace.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Three Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> This story exists for two reasons: one, a wise friend going "Okay so what about an infoshop, but with magic," and two, an equally wise lecturer telling us that "the rule of thumb is if something sounds like it belongs in a magic spell, it's Romantic."  
> And it has incredibly beautiful art, thanks to Mio!! (Tausend Dank nochmal dafür. :) ) Definitely check out more beautiful art [on her blog](http://made-of-coffee.tumblr.com)!  
> There's now also a beautiful illustration of a scene in chapter five by the lovely routeguano [here](http://routeguano.tumblr.com/post/162547322206/jehan-and-mae-from-that-absolutely-stunning).  
> Title from Florence + the Machine's Various Storms and Saints.  
> Warnings for magical mind manipulation and allusions to past verbal/psychological abuse; please let me know if you need more info before reading.

_March_

 

The weight of his bag was dragging Marius down to the side, all his belongings slung over one shoulder, as he stared the scar-faced bouncer in the eye. This had been a terrible mistake. 

“I don't – I don't know of any watchword.”

The hatch in front of him snapped shut.

“No!” Marius wrung his hands. “Please, there's – you have to let me in, I'm one of you, at least let me _show you_ _—_ ”

He was talking to a wall, an actual wall with a dirty glass hatch. There was really no salvaging this situation.

“First time here?”

The voice was kind and cheerful, but Marius jumped at the sound of it. “I'm – I'm sorry?”

He hadn't seen the boy coming up to him, which was awful in itself, because it meant he'd just been seen talking to a wall, but he was also taken aback by the fact that it was apparently very easy to sneak up on him. So much for keeping one's guard up, he thought.

The boy the voice belonged to must be around his age, and he looked like the exact kind of person Marius normally avoided: tall, chestnut-haired, with a mischievous gleam in his eyes that only showed once he removed his aviators (for which there was no reason; it was an overcast day in March). His jeans were too tight, his shoes too clean; everything about him screamed easy confidence. Confident people terrified Marius on principle – he'd gone to school with enough of them to spot the type and know that they rarely approached him with peaceful intentions.

“You've got to understand, the staff on watch here can be a bit of a harsh mistress. They don't mean it. Hey!” The boy knocked on the hatch, and it slid open again, revealing the same bouncer as before. He was still wearing his frown, his dark eyes pinning Marius down instantly. “Be nicer to newbies,” the boy said. Marius couldn't tell if the reproach in his voice was genuine or mocking. “I know it's your special virtue to be vigilant, but there's no need for that with Musain-virgins. He's with me.”

Marius spluttered, and he was sure there was something he meant to say, but he couldn't get a hold of what to react to first: the boy's blatant openness, the grunt of the bouncer in response, the way the iron, white-painted door that wasn't a wall after all slowly slid to the side and let them in, or what revealed itself when they stepped inside, Marius dragged along by the boy's hand on his arm.

It was too much to take in at once. The door shut behind them, and they were surrounded by comfortable-looking couches and low-set tables, and typical coffee-shop-music was coming from speakers that Marius couldn't locate, and everything was so painfully ordinary that Marius was, for a moment, a little underwhelmed. Surely it wasn't possible that he was in the wrong place, even now?

“I,” he said, ignoring for the moment that he didn't even know the name of the boy next to him. “I wasn't expecting this.”

“No?” The boy grinned and pulled him over to a booth tucked away in a corner near the bar. “It can be disappointing, I suppose. If you were expecting floating cups of coffee and the like.”

The right place after all, then. Marius wondered if he could make coffee cups float. Probably not without spilling something.

The boy had already gotten comfortable on the couch and gestured for Marius to sit with him. “I'm Courfeyrac,” he offered a hand, “you may call me that and nothing else.”

“Marius,” Marius replied helplessly, and, unsure if 'Courfeyrac' was a first, or last, or nickname, added, “Marius Pontmercy.”

“All right.” Courfeyrac smiled and nudged Marius' rather inconveniently large bag, which he'd set down next to their table, with a foot. “You planning on moving in, Marius?”

“I, uhm.” Likely, Courfeyrac had no idea how justified that question was. “I'm actually looking for a hostel or something, but I – I thought I'd come here first. I'm not completely sure what I thought I'd find here.”

He had already disclosed too much, but Courfeyrac didn't seem put off. “I see. Well, the Musain rarely turns anyone with a gift away, but they don't rent out for overnight stays, as far as I know. Sorry for the gatekeeping, too; I keep telling them it's bullshit.”

“The—” It took Marius a second to catch up. “Oh, no, I understand. You must want to stay among yourselves, anyone could walk in—”

“As they should be able to,” Courfeyrac said with an easy shrug. “Hiding in plain sight helps no one. There's other places, if you're interested, where they don't force you to make a fool of yourself before you're let in.”

“Why did he let you in, anyway?” Marius thought back to a minute ago, which already seemed distant. “You didn't say a watchword.”

“Oh, I did.” Courfeyrac grinned, a little self-deprecating. “It's primitive. And obvious, once you've thought it over. You'll get there.”

This didn't tell Marius anything. “If I may ask,” he said instead of pushing that part further, “I was wondering – what's your – what can you do?” It took him two seconds to regret the question. “You didn't ask me that, either; it's not something you're supposed to ask, is it? God, I'm sorry, I'm really new to this; I wouldn't even have been let in if it wasn't for you—”

Courfeyrac shushed him, and Marius, something between taken aback and offended, obeyed. “Watch this,” Courfeyrac said with a smile and reached for the small jar on the table that held an unlit tea light. He plucked it out of the jar with quick fingers and placed it between them on the table, two fingertips pinching the candlewick tightly. When he let go a second later, a small trace of quickly fading sparks fluttered from his fingertips as he pulled them away, and the candle was burning.

“No!” One of Marius' hand had flown to his mouth to silence himself a second too late. “Sorry,” he said, more softly, and let his fingers hover near the candle, as if to test if the flame was real. For a moment, the confusion and anger of the last few days ebbed away, and he was amazed with what he had found here – a friend, potentially, and a world with different rules. It was maddening how full of possibilities life suddenly seemed, and the words tumbled out before Marius could stop them. “I can – if you'd like to see. I can make things move.” He cleared his throat. “When I think of it, I mean. I can make them move with my mind.”

“Go on.” Courfeyrac gestured to the clutter on the table; menus and the glass that used to hold the tealight and a small potted plant. His grin was encouraging.

“Right.” Marius tried to set his eyes on something that was innocuous, something he couldn't mess up if he accidentally let it shoot across the room, or dropped it without meaning to.

He drew the glass that Courfeyrac had picked the tea light from over and found it filled with small, decorative pebbles that looked like they could do very little harm. There were enough of them, and they were light enough, that it barely took any focus to lift them up, to let them spread out and hover in the air between the two of them, moving slowly as if they were floating in their own little space of zero gravity. He still had to use his hands; he'd read that gestures weren't required at all and mostly functioned as a mental crutch of sorts, but he liked to use them, if only to remind himself that this was really him, _he_ was doing this, this thing that, to anyone who was unfamiliar with it, must look terrifying and miraculous at once.

When he looked up, tentative, Courfeyrac was smiling brilliantly. “That's amazing,” he said, and even though Marius had already begun to feel the same way before, on hearing these words from someone else, a different kind of warmth spread in his chest. He felt himself smile back without choosing to. “Marius,” Courfeyrac said, and reached out to put a hand to his wrist, “you said you were looking for a place to stay?”

 

_April_

 

Grantaire was in his usual spot at an unusual time – it was too early yet for there to be any potential customers, and the streets were quiet despite the light. April mornings; they never held much promise.

His chair was still in place, which was a pleasant surprise every morning. The most pessimistic part of him, while not entirely sure about the logistics behind chair-theft in open spaces, expected it to be gone after each night, mostly because it would be so easy for anyone to take it. The demand for folding chairs, however, seemed rather small in this particular spot of rue de Rome, so Grantaire got to drag his chair out day after day from where he kept it leaned up against the back door of the kiosk.

He pulled it a few metres away before unfolding it, more to placate Musichetta than anything else. She was being far too lenient with him as it was, and she didn't deserve to have her nerves trampled on – not that Grantaire managed to keep that in mind at all times, but he liked to think he was making a fair effort.

She was easy to read, Musichetta, and, unlike anyone Grantaire had ever met, completely impervious in her openness. She tried to hide none of her emotions, let them show with no shame, and Grantaire was as terrified as he was transfixed by that, by her laughter, her joy, her sharpness, her anger. Whyever she was running a small kiosk near a train station instead of ruling over an entire country somewhere, Grantaire had no idea, except for the suspicion that she considered her kiosk her kingdom, and Grantaire could count himself lucky to be left in charge of it sometimes.

Not far from him, a man made for the train station, and Grantaire shook himself out of the reverie brought on by a lack of sleep and coffee to raise a hand and stop him. “Monsieur!”

Startled, the man looked over, his pace slowing. Grantaire stood up from his chair and took a few steps towards him, smiling his best customer-smile, the one he'd spent months perfecting. It needed just the right hint of mystery while maintaining enough friendliness to make him seem trustworthy, and all the while, it needed to look sincere. It was an art form in itself. “Excuse me, Monsieur; would you like to be amazed?”

Now the man came to a halt, and, as if making up his mind, shrugged before walking over to Grantaire. He wasn't nearly as surprised as many were, Grantaire noted. “I suppose I have some time to spare.”

Briefly, Grantaire wondered if this was it, the day that he accidentally picked up a gifted customer who would instantly see right through him. It wasn't hard to tell real magic from fake, when you had seen enough of it, and Musichetta liked to remind him of that on a near-daily basis.

He let the man take a seat in his chair, tried to shake off the last bits of weariness that still clung from the night, and went through the whole routine. The man, white-haired and dressed in a smart suit, had a daughter he loved (for a man of that age, “wife” would have been Grantaire's second attempt, made redundant by the slightest twitch of eyebrows the man had given on the word “daughter,” a hint he'd almost missed), unfinished business he disliked to think of, and a formerly secure future that had lately begun to look less secure. After the reading, which Grantaire, personally, was dissatisfied with even though he could hardly be expected to be at the top of his game right now, the man left him a ten euro bill and a pat on the shoulder. Strangely, it served to do nothing but make Grantaire feel like he had been the one scammed, in some sort of unanticipated role reversal brought on by sleep deprivation and an overly kind customer.

Musichetta had come sauntering up to the kiosk just as the man was walking away. “I see we're taking advantage of superstitions in the elderly now,” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Like you didn't have enough to be ashamed of before.”

“What can I say; I live to exceed expectations.” Grantaire dragged his chair closer to the kiosk and Musichetta walked behind it just to appear at the front seconds later, drawing up the roller blind from the inside. She had dragged the delivery of today's newspapers inside with her and started sorting them into racks, sparing him a critical look.

“Why are you here so early, anyway? You look like death, too.”

“Thanks,” Grantaire muttered. “I was trying to make it out of _someone's_ apartment before _someone_ woke up, then I realised daylight was catching up with me, then I realised I was around here anyway and I'd save time and money if I just, y'know. Skipped going home and started my shift early.”

Musichetta laughed. “Charming. So this – my business and life's work, might I add – is just a very extended stop on your walk of shame?”

“Precisely.” Grantaire didn't miss the way she shook awake the coffee maker as she talked. He could always trust her to express any discontent she felt outright, but even if that wasn't the case, if she was truly angry, there'd be no coffee. “That guy wasn't that old, anyway; I think he wasn't buying what I was selling for a second. And he might have been an actual fugitive from the law, I'm not sure.”

“Not sure, hm? Bad day for readings?”

“Bad day for my mental capacities, apparently.” He ran a hand over his eyes – maybe this had been a bad idea, the whole 'no sleep and straight to work'-thing. “Do the rings under my eyes make me look shady?”

“No more than usual,” Musichetta said. She put the first finished cup of coffee down in front of him. “Worried about your image?”

“About my customers.” He blew over the mug; he didn't have the patience to wait for coffee much longer. “I mean, you'd get that, right? It's our business to be trustworthy.”

“No, that's my business,” she corrected. “Your business is to _seem_ trustworthy and never let people know that there's not a magically gifted bone in your body.”

Grantaire tried to sip coffee, promptly burned the tip of his tongue, and cursed under his breath. “You trust me, though,” he said with a slight lisp.

“I let you sell papers and candy bars to people in my absence.” She leaned on the counter and wrapped her hands around her own cup of coffee, warming them. “Not quite the same.”

“How you wound me,” Grantaire said with an exaggerated gesture, but the rest of his speech was cut short by the sound of chatter from the station. A train must have just come in – it was just late enough for the first commuters to be on it, which meant customers for Musichetta, and time for Grantaire to get his chair just far away enough from her that he wouldn't spook people who were still too tired for mind-reading-offers and just wanted to get their morning papers.

The rush came, and went, and Grantaire watched the blur of people pass by. He enjoyed people-watching, trying to figure out as much as he could of them as they passed, but it was more fun when his brain wasn't as sluggish as today. A girl was carrying her phone pushed up in her sleeve instead of in her pocket, and she was too quick for him to think of why. Someone was hiding something in their coat, one arm pressed to their side to keep it there, and Grantaire had no idea what it might be. It was unsatisfying, frustrating enough for Grantaire to decide to call it a day before the morning rush was even over. Just as he turned to disclose this to Musichetta, she was interrupting her conversation with a customer to wave him over.

“You're on,” she said, tossing him the keys for the liquor cabinet, just in case anyone who came by wanted to get their daily supply of whiskey at ten in the morning. Grantaire had to jump forward to catch them and regretted this effort instantly, because before the customer walked around to follow Musichetta into the back, he gave Grantaire a friendly nod, and Grantaire almost tripped over his own feet.

Musichetta did readings for all sorts of people. There was no cliché that fit when it came to the kind of person who went to a psychic for advice: Grantaire had seen people of all types and ages slip in through the back door of Musichetta's kiosk, but despite her extremely varied clientele, someone who looked like he'd wandered off a runway and come straight here was definitely a novelty.

Grantaire had been able to look at him for two seconds at most, and was still stunned when he'd already disappeared. He'd been taller than Grantaire, dark-skinned, nicely dressed and beautiful, with hair like a halo and cheekbones sharp enough to make him look regal. Struck by the sight, Grantaire had been rooted to the ground for a few moments, and when he came back to himself, he'd missed the opportunity to get in through the back door as well. He swung over the counter to get behind it, which earned him a few wary looks from passers-by, but after the way he'd just openly gaped at a poor man who was just there for a glimpse into his own destiny, they didn't bother him much.

The brief encounter had left him dazzled. After ten minutes of manning the kiosk, he was pretty sure he'd sold some papers, but he wouldn't have been able to vouch for it when pressed. When Musichetta slipped through the narrow door that led to the back room, Grantaire stopped her with a hand to her arm.

“Tell me that guy had, like, the wrong address.”

“Huh?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Hang on, is this prejudice I'm seeing? You don't think he'd be here for a reading?”

“Well, was he?”

“No,” Musichetta said pointedly and pushed Grantaire off the desk chair behind the counter, “he was here to pick up a bunch of expired energy drinks for the ABC. Can't sell them, might as well feed them to my friends.”

At 'ABC,' Grantaire would have stopped paying attention if these were different circumstances. Musichetta couldn't be serious. “I'm having an even harder time imagining he's from your School for Gifted Youngsters,” he said. “Seriously, who was that?”

“Better suspend your disbelief,” Musichetta said, sounding a little triumphant even in her disinterest. “That was Enjolras; he came up with the whole idea.”

“Enjolras?” Grantaire frowned. Every newspaper-reading person in France knew that name. Every gifted person in France knew it, too, for almost, but not quite, the same reason. “Any relation?”

Musichetta blinked, as if forgetting that one of her friends shared the name of one of the most influential people in Paris was a common thing for her. “Oh,” she said then, still unimpressed. “Yeah. Her son, actually.”

“I see.” In retrospect, he might have guessed that. Not the whole thing about the guy's relation to a famous politician, but that he was set on a whole different plane of existence to Grantaire. He'd had the air of that kind of person; he was casually superior, possibly even unaware of it. Grantaire's chest felt very tight, suddenly, in an all-too-familiar feeling of envy. “And what's the ancient and great gift that passed down from mother to son? Wait,” he held up a hand, “let me guess. Telekinesis is too common, obviously, not nearly elegant enough, and I mean, you saw him; it's probably nothing as primitive as influencing objects at all – not divination either, I'm guessing, no offence, but that one's an old shoe; mother's good, old-fashioned witchcraft, perhaps? Although on second thought, that seems too earthy, wouldn't want to get our hands dirty—”

“Feeling better yet?” Musichetta looked at him, completely unfazed, and Grantaire cut his rant short. She wasn't the one who needed to hear it – that was, no one needed to, but she had especially little reason to be subjected to it.

“Seriously,” he said, trying, and failing, not to sound eager, “what's his thing?”

Musichetta softened at that. “Nothing,” she said, more gently, and the small space of the kiosk seemed to shift around Grantaire. He couldn't have heard right. “He's just like you.”

 

_September_

 

The witch looked nothing like he'd expected. Not because he had stereotypical ideas of witches – he'd dealt with them before, vaguely, in passing, and of course, Éponine was one. In a way. She had never cared very much for the term.

So it was difficult to surprise Montparnasse when it came to the looks of witches. This witch in particular surprised him because he had expected anything, really; he had expected any appearance, gender, skin colour, and apparel – but he had at least expected a human being.

The thing was, the witch was a pain to get a hold of, so he'd triple-checked every last tidbit of information, made sure every single source knew what they were talking about so he would know for certain that he was in the right spot. Now, here he was, exactly in the appointed place, with no one to face down but a fox.

It was a particularly beautiful animal, Montparnasse supposed. He hadn't seen enough foxes to pass proper judgement on that. The fox had been staring at him for a disconcerting amount of time, never put off, despite his annoyance that surely must have been showing. The light that shone into the alley from the main road reflected on its smooth fur and gave its eyes a spark – its demeanour didn't seem particularly fox-like, really; the way it held himself was eerily composed, not animalistic at all. Montparnasse stared back at it, almost in a challenge, and finally gave up, sighing with exasperation.

“How do I _talk_ to you?”

Unsurprisingly, the fox didn't answer.

Montparnasse huffed, and briefly fought the impulse to lash out and just _kick_.

“You're really pissing me off,” he said instead. There had to be a human in there, right? Might as well let them have it. “Isn't this bad for business? Who puts effort into tracking you down, finds you looking like this, and just – sticks around for the negotiation part?”

He ran a hand through his hair. The spot itself wasn't too bad for business, actually, because there was barely anyone around. Otherwise, obviously he wouldn't be talking to a fox, no matter how sure he was of it being a witch in disguise. Since when was that a real thing, anyway, witches turning into animals? Could Éponine do it?

“Or is there – do I need to use some kind of code?” He couldn't say why he was thinking out loud. He felt like maybe letting the witch in on his thought process might make him look less stupid, and the suspicion was now beginning to creep up on him that he was really achieving the opposite. “Was there something I missed? Do I have to say a password and you'll turn into something less – canine?”

The fox blinked.

Montparnasse stood there staring it down for a moment longer, and then he turned away to start walking back down the alley, feeling the flare of heat in his cheeks. There wasn't anyone there to be embarrassed in front of, but Montparnasse had always been his own audience, and that was bad enough.

A soft sound stopped him in his tracks – quietly, not too far behind him, someone was giggling. The sound was unmistakably human, and unmistakably mocking. Montparnasse turned around, just in time to see a silhouette moving in the dark, and he started walking again and sped up his gait, because if the witch had decided to show up to laugh at him now, he wanted nothing to do with them.

“Wait!” The same voice, still carrying traces of laughter. “Don't leave; you want something from me.”

Not anymore, Montparnasse almost said, because yes, he was petty enough to let go a whole operation after being made fun of, and no, he had no back-up plan. It didn't matter.

The witch sounded incredulous now. “Oh, please – you're really leaving?”

Montparnasse turned the corner that would take him back to the main road, and then, a second before his feet stopped moving as if rooted to the ground, the witch spoke again.

“ _Weave a circle round him thrice!_ ”

Almost instantly, his feet were lead. He felt that he could still move, technically, and he twisted around to find the witch, but he couldn't keep walking. When he looked down, thin vines were wrapped around his shoes, strong like ropes, holding him down.

The witch came closer, their silhouette taking shape as they emerged from the shade of the alley. “My, my, you're prickly,” they said, their voice soft. “I apologise. I wouldn't have put your thinly-worn patience to a test if I'd known.” They reached out for Montparnasse's arm, and the tendrils around his feet fell away. “Come.”

Montparnasse let it happen, let himself be dragged along until they were in the dim light of the alley again, in the half-dark that hid the witch's form. He could see contours of their face, still, a face without edges, made of soft lines and eyes that shone.

The witch smiled, not showing their teeth. “I believe you were here to talk business.”

 


	2. Observations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ABC gets a new member, a game of chess is about anything but chess, and Montparnasse pays a visit to a friend.

_November_

 

Living with Marius wasn't unlike living with a ghost, or at least, not unlike what Courfeyrac imagined living with a ghost must be like. (He'd have to consult Bossuet for specifics.) At any given time of day, there could be noises without an apparent source – that was, without an apparent source until Marius explained loudly from a room over that everything was fine, he'd just tripped over the power cord of his laptop, or that there was no need to worry, he'd only overestimated his skills in experimenting with no-touch juggling. Once, Courfeyrac had walked into the kitchen to find some toast hovering over the counter, as if held by an invisible hand. He'd called for Marius, who had emerged from the supply closet and giggled until he couldn't stand upright anymore, and Courfeyrac, who by then had come to know Marius as someone who rarely laughed at jokes, much less made them, had been helplessly charmed.

The pale apparition that was Marius Pontmercy himself, aside from all those things, turned out to be a pleasant roommate, and after five months of having him stay in his tiny spare room, Courfeyrac had exactly one complaint.

“You're no fun, do I ever tell you that, Pontmercy?” Marius was hunched over the kitchen table, blinking up through his fringe as Courfeyrac cornered him.

“Uh. No?”

Courfeyrac sighed. “Please say you're coming out with me tonight.”

“I – really rather wouldn't,” Marius said. His left hand had started tapping the end of the pencil he was holding against the tabletop; Courfeyrac wasn't sure if he was aware he was doing it. “Look at all this, I mean – I'm swamped, and I wouldn't be great company anyway—”

“What sort of reason is that? You can't choose to mope and then use that moping as an excuse to do more moping.”

“This is _work_ ,” Marius said, offended, and Courfeyrac leaned over, taking both of Marius' hands in his and guiding them away from the books.

“Marius,” he said, “be honest. Were the last few times really that terrible?”

“You wanted to 'initiate' me,” Marius reminded him, his expression twisting in horror at the memory. “I had to do a body shot off of a tall, muscular man.”

“If you'd rather have done one off of me, you could have just said.” Marius looked somehow both terrified and utterly lost, and Courfeyrac sighed. “Okay, listen, I'll admit that taking you clubbing wasn't the brightest idea I've had this year, because you're not really the club-type and I should have seen that.” Marius opened his mouth, and Courfeyrac held up a hand to cut him off. “But the ABC isn't like that at all! It has tons of people just like you, and you'd love them, I'm sure. I'm not the kind of person to repeat their mistakes, Pontmercy.”

“I'm still not sure I've understood what the ABC is,” Marius muttered, turning his attention back to his homework. Courfeyrac reached over and snatched the workbook from under his nose.

“It's a meetup of all sorts of cool people, gifted and non-gifted alike, we rent out an old shop, anyone invited can come by at any time, there's couches, there's a coffee machine, there's reading material and candlelight, it's nice, you should go there.”

“But – what's the point?” Marius was eyeing the workbook that was clutched to Courfeyrac's chest, part of his mind already working on a plan to snatch it back. “Magical and non-magical people interact every day, you don't need to an abandoned warehouse to have them do that.”

“It's not a warehouse. It used to be a bookshop, Marius! You love those, don't you?” Fine, he wasn't being entirely fair here, because aside from the faded lettering of ABC in the shop window, little had remained that even indicated that books had once been sold there, but wasn't there a saying somewhere about everything being fair in love and trying to get your friends to realise what's good for them?

“That's not what I asked,” Marius said, still adamant. “Why make a point of gifted and non-gifted exchange when that happens every day?”

“Because yes, obviously it happens every day, but not openly, not with both parties actively knowing whether the person they're talking to is gifted or not, and with magical people only finding each other using codes and tricks as if we're still in the dark ages – that stuff doesn't exist in the shop, we don't force people to hide there, there's no watchwords or bouncers and it still works out. Even if you're not interested in being involved, don't you want to see it _work out_?” Courfeyrac was on a roll, his cheeks heated with excitement. “Think about it, Marius. Are people who still insist on secrecy and us staying amongst ourselves any better than your grandfather? Doesn't prejudice go both ways? There's one place in Paris where we've eradicated it, and you don't want to experience that at least once?”

Marius chewed on his bottom lip. Courfeyrac forced himself not to stare – _focus, Courf, you were doing great just then_. “I don't think emotional blackmail is a very fair way of convincing someone.”

“I've convinced you, then,” Courfeyrac surmised.

“You've...” Marius bit his lip again, and Courfeyrac wondered what he'd done to deserve this. “Can I leave at any time?”

“Of course,” Courfeyrac said. That was mistake number two he'd made in dragging Marius to a nightclub – those didn't tend to be the best spots for people with severe social anxiety, and even though Marius didn't talk a lot about it, Courfeyrac could have arrived at that conclusion on his own. “I'll even cover for you. 'Excuse my friend, he has important telekinetic business to attend to,' any time you need it. Just let me know.”

Marius smiled weakly. “Then you're not really leaving me with a reason not to go, are you?”

Courfeyrac grinned and handed him the workbook back, at last. “No,” he said, “no, I'm not.”

 

The eyrie had been dubbed that by Feuilly, who was known for the occasional florid idea, but had been especially so during his phase of enthusiasm for Game of Thrones. Enjolras hadn't admitted it out loud to anyone, but he loved the nickname, less because of its connection to a TV-show and more for the fact that it didn't sound as embarrassing as 'hide-out for people who are currently tired of company, but not tired enough to stay at home.' It was an elevated alcove in the back of the shop that a steep, wooden set of stairs led up to, and its sturdy floorboards were covered with blankets and pillows, transforming it into a small refuge and occasional loft bed for anyone who needed a place to stay overnight. Board games were stacked into the corner furthest from the stairs, together with two rolled-up sleeping bags and more folded blankets.

Up in the eyrie, the light was dim, but just bright enough to read, even though Enjolras' head was slowly starting to ache. That might be the reading material just as much as the lighting conditions, he wasn't sure, and any further contemplation on it was cut short when he heard footsteps on the creaking stairs.

If Grantaire didn't have a strangely unmistakable silhouette, Enjolras wouldn't have been able to say who he was when he arrived at the top of the stairs, shadowed in the backlight as he was. But Grantaire had a way of holding himself, of hunching his shoulders and wearing always the same loose-fitting hoodies under his jacket, that was impossible to get mixed up with anyone else. Other than that, Enjolras didn't know a lot about him, because Grantaire, however much he pretended otherwise, was as unknowable as they came. He talked about everything, was serious about nothing, and sometimes, very rarely, showed a glimpse of sincerity, only to backtrack at once and try to make everyone who had witnessed the moment forget that it had happened. It was hard to watch. Enjolras had been waiting for a chance to catch a glimpse of what might lie beyond all that ever since Grantaire had first come here – maybe this was it.

“Ah,” Grantaire said, his features now softly illuminated by the light streaming upwards from the shop below, revealing a wry smile. “Sorry. They should have an 'occupied'-sign for this thing.”

“It's fine,” Enjolras said, but Grantaire was already turning on the steps, ready to be gone almost as quickly as he'd come. It was rare for him to even seek out the eyrie, Enjolras realised. Grantaire wasn't one for solitude – that was another thing Enjolras knew about him. “This isn't a monopole; the platform does hold more than one person.”

Grantaire turned, and for a moment, Enjolras thought he could see his frown in the dark.

 _Stay_ would have been the simplest thing to say, he supposed, and tried to find something, anything other than that. He reached into the stack of games at random and, when he looked at what he'd grabbed, found a chess set, travel edition. “Do you play?”

In the few seconds of silence that followed, Enjolras didn't need to see Grantaire's face to know he was sceptical. “Badly,” Grantaire said then, and drew himself back up onto the platform. “Perfect if you're looking for an easy win to lift your spirits.”

Enjolras never was. He handed Grantaire the bag with the white pieces as proof of that, and Grantaire grinned. “So that's how it's going to be.”

“I expect you to have lied about being bad at it, too, so I'll have sabotaged myself doubly,” Enjolras said, lining up his pieces. “You're not normally here on Thursdays.”

“'Chetta needs her key,” Grantaire said, but he sounded surprised. Maybe he had reason to – as a rule, Enjolras was interested in everyone who came to the shop, but not everyone was aware of that. It was another thing Enjolras had gotten used to, people considering him far less invested than he was. Most of the time, it was an advantage. “I locked up for her. Thought I'd catch her here, but she's running late.”

He moved a pawn forward two squares, and Enjolras, without thinking, responded with the exact parallel move. Grantaire frowned at him. “Imaginative,” he said, and moved a knight.

They played in silence for a while, and Enjolras found himself enjoying it, the shift of focus a welcome distraction from his previous thoughts which had bordered on brooding. He couldn't say he'd expected Grantaire to be a particularly relaxed game partner, but then, he'd never taken the time to talk to him properly before.

“I interrupted your reading,” Grantaire said when he took one of Enjolras' knights with a bishop, the first casualty of the game.

“It was assigned reading,” Enjolras replied, “just begging to be interrupted.” He took the bishop at fault with a pawn. “I wasn't really up here to get through it.”

Grantaire examined him, and Enjolras disliked being scrutinized, but Grantaire's eyes were soft, and it was hard to take offence at that particular kind of look. “Well, whatever reason you did come up here for,” Grantaire said, and looked back at the board, “can't be worse than mine. Have you met the young Baron Pontmercy?”

“Marius?” Courfeyrac had brought him in for the first time today – Bahorel had seemed to know him already, but Enjolras wasn't keen on finding out the circumstances of that; they were indelicate judging by Marius' spluttering and Bahorel's unadulterated glee. “I wasn't aware we had nobility in our midst.”

Grantaire smiled weakly at the sarcasm. “The honorific was my spontaneous invention. I've never seen a person with their head in the clouds like that; Little Prince doesn't do him justice. He's Baron Marius Pontmercy. Just now, like, five minutes ago, we were introduced, and one second later he was going on about how it was snowing outside and he could, I don't know, make some of the snowflakes do what he wanted, Elsa-style? And apparently it was all very miraculous and reduced him and the rest of the room to child-like wonder about snowglobes without the globes, so I,” he gestured vaguely at himself, “a bitter Squib, got out of there.”

“You're mixing your popular metaphors,” Enjolras noted, but he smiled. They weren't bad metaphors, and he had a suspicion that listening to Marius rave on in his enthusiasm would have been hard for him as well. He wouldn't have let it show, but Grantaire seemed to be the kind of person that was at once violently unguarded, and very difficult to read. He never bothered hiding his distaste for anything. It wasn't necessarily tactful, Enjolras supposed, but at least sincere.

“I can go on,” Grantaire muttered. “Here I am, nothing but parlour tricks to show for myself, and Baron Pontmercy has mastered waterbending. Can you imagine what that must have looked like? Marius in the pastel light of a street lamp, unobserved a few minutes after nightfall, a snow flurry just for himself in the palm of his hand...”

Somewhere in that last sentence, Grantaire's tone had teetered dangerously on losing its irony, and for a moment, Enjolras felt inexplicably fond of him. He sympathised with others through rationality far more than he actually felt sympathy, because he shared experiences with few people, and he wouldn't presume to know what anything felt like that he hadn't felt for himself. This – wistfulness tainted by envy, the knowledge that this beautiful thing that someone else could bask in so easily could have been his and had been denied him by an ugly twist of fate – this, Enjolras understood.

“We can't begrudge it,” Enjolras said, and, looking back at the board, spotted an opening to take one of Grantaire's pawns. He took it. “It might be unavoidable, sometimes, but with Marius... do you know anything about him?”

“I know that people in my court are dying like flies,” Grantaire said, frowning, and moved a pawn, failing to draw his knight out of Enjolras' line of fire.

“Maybe you should be offering them protection,” Enjolras said, and took the knight with a bishop.

Grantaire glanced up at him and, almost smiling, took the bishop with his pawn. “I am.”

Enjolras frowned, willing himself to focus. “Has anyone told you about Marius?”

“I see you weren't there for Courfeyrac's 'Please be nice to my friend, he's had a tough life and also I'm trying to get into his pants'-speech yesterday,” Grantaire said dryly. “And yeah, I guess being forcefully kept unaware of your own magic until you find out by chance gives you the right to gush about it, but then, how can you be that oblivious of your own powers for so long? I mean, I wouldn't know, but doesn't stuff happen on accident, too? Didn't he ever, like, see Uri Geller on TV and try to bend a spoon and freak out when it actually worked?”

“Obviously not,” Enjolras said. “And it's almost impossible, psychologically, to question things you've accepted as rational truths completely without outside influence. If you'd grown up without a gifted parent, without anyone near you who was living proof that magic was real – what would the odds be that you'd believe in it, even if strange things happened in your life? They do in everybody's. It's very easy to fool yourself to stay within your own frame of rationality.”

Enjolras didn't know him well enough to be sure, but he thought some of Grantaire's guard came back up at that. It might have been the wrong thing to say – there was a chance, after all, that Grantaire had made the exact reverse experience to Marius; that he had been expecting magic that never came. If that was true, it must have been its very own kind of painful, in a way that Enjolras didn't know for himself and couldn't understand for himself. He wished, now, that he'd prepared for the eventuality of meeting someone like this, but it had always seemed too unlikely to spend much thought on.

At least, even though he surely thought they were in the exact same situation, Grantaire didn't seem to expect Enjolras to carry the flag for them, which was more than could be said of most people who first met Enjolras. He didn't mind, most of the time. There were things he not only wanted, but needed to talk about, things he considered it his duty to shed light on because he had experienced them and knew them well – homophobia and racism, for the largest part – but magic was distant from those, not because Enjolras lacked opinions, but because in his situation, he didn't feel as if he had a right to declare them publicly. Grantaire didn't ask him to, and in that, he was unprecedented. It was unusual, and it was miserable. Having to lie to someone like him felt vile, no matter how Enjolras tried to justify it.

Luckily, Grantaire seemed to be winning the game after Enjolras had blundered completely while he'd been lost in thought, which rendered any further self-flagellation unnecessary. Enjolras had moved a pawn forward, which had opened the way for one of Grantaire's bishops to take one of Enjolras' knights, and even though Enjolras managed to recapture with a bishop in his own turn, Grantaire moved a knight that took both Enjolras' pawn and his central position on the board. Enjolras stared in disbelief as most of this happened – he wasn't normally this unfocused.

“Yeah,” Grantaire said, shaking his head, almost in reprimand. “Don't really know where you thought that would get you, either.”

“You still lied,” Enjolras reminded him. “I'm good at this, and you're winning.”

“That's not my chess skills, that's my 'distract people by oversharing' skills,” Grantaire said. “Not that the mixup doesn't flatter me.”

Enjolras tried in vain to salvage his position on the board; he'd manoeuvred himself into a corner and every move he made was met by a responding block from Grantaire, who took two more of his pieces before Enjolras ultimately surveyed the board, found his material cut down to almost nothing, and tipped over his own king.

“Really?” Grantaire frowned. “I wasn't anywhere near your king.”

“You were about to take either my last bishop, or my queen,” Enjolras said. “I won't insult you by pretending I could have wormed my way out of that.”

He collected the pieces off the board and slid them back into the satchel, careful not to miss one. All the while, he could feel Grantaire's eyes on him.

“You're pretty unparalleled,” he said after a few moments, in such a factual tone that Enjolras almost missed the sweetness in those words. “Here I was, thinking I'd found someone as fucked up and bitter as me, and you're so intent on defending Baron Pontmercy's honour that it makes you lose against a terrible chess player. I mean, what were the odds?”

Enjolras looked up to meet his eyes, and _oh_.

To a degree, Enjolras was used to being looked at, to turning one or the other head in the streets, to being appraised by strangers in ways that were nearly never respectful and always unsolicited. There was something very different in Grantaire's eyes, something that couldn't have just suddenly come up in the past thirty minutes – which had been the first time they'd really spoken. Had Grantaire looked at him like this before? Had he really been overlooking something so profound for so long?

“I,” he said, and tried to sort through the sudden flood of thoughts. “I try not to let it affect how I see other people, what I can or can't do. That doesn't mean I always succeed.”

Grantaire huffed, but that look in his eyes didn't go away, and Enjolras didn't know what to make of it. “Just trying puts you in a better light than a lot of people out there. Can't imagine what that's like. Other than exhausting, obviously.”

“In my experience,” Enjolras said, “not as exhausting as being resentful.” He had tried, more or less willingly, both. Being completely balanced and forgiving didn't come as a second nature to him the way it did to Combeferre, but he had found that any effort in that direction was worth the struggle. Grantaire's own anger still resonated with him, although he'd never allow that to show, and he wondered if he was doing Grantaire a disservice that way.

“I must be pretty offensive to you, then.” Grantaire smiled. “Although you'll have to admit, unless some of us are there to demonstrate just how awful things can get, you don't look as shiny in comparison.” He pulled a face as soon as he'd said it. “Ah, who are we kidding. You probably don't need an awful example to stand out, with all your...” He gestured vaguely.

Enjolras had nothing to say in direct response to that. “It's not foreign to me, you know,” he said instead, and it wasn't a lie; it _wasn't_. He and Grantaire hadn't made the same experience, but Enjolras could tell just from their conversation how similar it must have been. “I feel like it never really goes away, at least not completely. The resentment. We just face it differently, and we deal with it in whatever ways we can.” He exhaled. If Grantaire was any other person, someone he'd spoken to more than once, he'd have taken his hand, or touched his shoulder. “It's not... offensive,” he said quietly, “how you choose to protect yourself.”

Grantaire was looking at him still, his lips parted, something strange reflecting in his eyes for a moment before he blinked it away. “Chetta's going to be here by now, probably,” he said then, shifting towards the stairs. “Thanks for losing against me.”

“Any time,” Enjolras said, and watched Grantaire disappear below the platform of the eyrie.

 

Within two weeks of them moving there, Montparnasse had learned that whenever the Thénardiers claimed that Éponine currently wasn't in the sparsely furnished two-room apartment they occupied, there was a chance she was actually home and had kept her parents unaware of it. That was why Montparnasse had come to bypass asking them completely and instead started climbing straight onto the roof of the garage right next to their building, which adjoined the room that Éponine and her siblings shared. She hid out there – to avoid her parents, to smoke, and, as she never admitted, to watch the sky on clear nights – and it was Montparnasse's first try every time he was looking for her.

She was there tonight, leaning against the wall below her window, a wisp of a girl with far too little to protect her from the cold. She wasn't like Montparnasse, who had perfected the art of wearing layer over layer without having to suffer a loss of stylishness; she threw on the same jeans, blouse and parka every day and considered that functional.

“Do you,” said Montparnasse and tugged on the lapel of his own warm jacket. He'd climbed up the side of the garage quick as a spider, and she hadn't bothered greeting him.

“How very gentlemanly,” she said in a cool voice, and curled up more tightly. He sighed and sat next to her. The offer had been at least sort of genuine, but the “sort of” was probably the problem.

“Your old man thinks you're staking that place out,” he said. “Just off the Avenue du Maine?”

“I was there,” she said, “but it's pointless. There's nothing there – it's completely empty, nothing to rob. Let him think I'm still kicking my heels staring at an abandoned bookshop.”

“You let _me_ think that.” Montparnasse glanced at her. Neither of them tended to say to the other what they meant to, and understanding her became more difficult the less he saw of her. “I was going to see you there.”

“You're seeing me now,” Éponine said, more gently. She didn't look at him. “Montparnasse, do you ever think—” She stopped herself, propping up her chin on her knees. Her breath was forming clouds of mist in the air; the temperature had dropped somewhere below zero for the first time this winter. He wondered how long she'd been out here. “You know a witch, don't you?”

“Aside from all of you?” She boxed him in the side. “Yes, I do.”

“What's she like?”

“He,” Montparnasse said, having made the same mistake for the first few times he'd met up with the witch in question. “Jehan, he's... I think he's clever? Those things that you need all those marks and mortars and everything for – he can do those with his hands. He can snap his fingers and say the word, and it's done. He gives me spells when I need them, they always go off stronger than I think. And...” Montparnasse pulled a face. “He's honest. He deals in a different alley every weekend, but he's not...” _He's not like us_. The words lodged in Montparnasse's throat. “He has a lot of rules.”

Éponine had both hands clenched to fists in the sleeves of her jacket, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. She didn't look like she'd listened to him, with her eyes set straight forward and that distant expression that sometimes came over her. If it hadn't been her that had asked, he would have thought she couldn't care less about anything he'd just said.

“I saw someone today,” she said, still not looking at him, perhaps pretending that she was talking to herself. “It snowed earlier; did you notice? Not much, but...” Montparnasse hadn't noticed. The snow couldn't have been enough to stick, and as long as the weather didn't obstruct him, there was no need to pay attention to it. “He passed when I was watching the shop; he must have thought he was alone. He even checked to see if anyone might be watching, I think. And he – he did something, I don't know, it couldn't have been a spell, because he didn't say or use anything, but he did something, and it was like – it was like the snow was listening to him. He caught snowflakes in his hand, but they were still falling, just – upwards, and sideways, and he kept them in his hand the whole time—” She broke off and exhaled, her eyes slipping closed.

Their neighbourhood was never silent, but it came closest to it here, in that liminal space between back yard and main road, and Montparnasse had nothing to say that would have any more value than the half-quiet they shared.

“It just made me wonder,” she said after a while, “I thought – it was nothing like what I can do, what he did, so there's no point in thinking too much about it, but I've never really thought before that...” Every breath she took was visible; she'd gotten herself worked up just like that, over hardly anything at all. Montparnasse couldn't always keep up with her impulses, with the way she seemed to constantly shift between feeling everything and nothing. Maybe that was how she kept herself warm, he thought, absurdly, with those all-encompassing bursts of fascination. She looked at him, for the first time that day. “Do you ever think magic could be beautiful?”

Montparnasse hadn't been expecting the question, but he knew what she meant; it wasn't necessary to have magic to just see it, and he'd seen enough of it to have an answer. He'd watched Éponine at work on spells, he'd seen her scratch together the ingredients for a hex with vicious determination, seen her magic press through teeth and fingernails. There was no point in telling her this, but to Montparnasse, it wasn't without beauty at all. It was visceral and demanded earth and blood, and that was its very own kind of grace, something awful and captivating. Still, it didn't take a genius, not even a particularly attentive observer, to know that Jehan was different: cleaner, softer, with an effortless elegance to his spells that Montparnasse had never even dared to imagine before.

He'd missed his chance at giving an answer, he realised as she looked away from him again, her eyes clear and hard.

“A word of that to my father, and I'll wreck you.”

Sometimes when she said that, he wondered if she actually could. With magic, easily. Without it – possibly, too. He didn't have a desire to put that particular theory to the test. “Maybe you should meet him some time,” he said, trying to sound indifferent. As soon as Éponine thought anyone wanted her to do anything, she was unlikely to do it. “Jehan, I mean. It looks different and all, but you've got the same gift at the core of it, right? Maybe he can teach you something, or, I don't know, tell you where to go...”

She looked at him again, and it was one of those looks that always, instantly, made Montparnasse wonder if there couldn't be a version of this where they were simply enough for each other, where they didn't both hopelessly strive for higher things, where they didn't both pretend the other was someone else half the time they were together. It was such a distant thing to imagine, except in these moments, where it seemed painfully close, but not quite close enough to reach.

“Jehan?” She said it carefully, committing the sound to memory. Montparnasse nodded. “Maybe some time,” she said, resting her head on her knees again. “Maybe.”

Absently, she tapped his gloved hand with a finger, and he pulled off his glove and offered it to her, letting her slip it on and warm her hand for a while. The other found Montparnasse's, and her fingers, stiff from the cold, intertwined with his, the touch so cool it was almost ghostly.

“Are you staying?”

Montparnasse shook his head; it was her way of asking if he needed a place to sleep, and he didn't plan on sleeping tonight. “Not necessary.” _I'll be busy_.

“Need any help?” _Is it safe for me to come?_

“No.” _No_.

She hummed, and silence spread out again, calmer this time. In the room behind them, Azelma was working; Montparnasse wasn't sure if she was aware of her sister's presence, much less of his. Nothing reached them out here save for the faint scent of burning angelica, the smoke escaping through the window above them and dissipating before the night sky. Montparnasse only left once Éponine declared that she was going to sneak in through the front door now, keeping up the illusion that she'd been gone the whole time, and slipped back away into the night.

 


	3. A Day in the Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or rather, a night in the life of Jean Prouvaire: friend, confidant, alley witch.

When Jehan announced shortly before midnight that he was heading home, he set the unofficial signal for everyone else still there that it was time for them to get going as well. They left together, three of them disappearing in the métro station down the street, which left Jehan with Combeferre, Bahorel, and Grantaire, who all lived in walking distance. (By a stretch – Combeferre had an hour to walk, and would certainly have been better off in the métro, but that wasn't the kind of person he was. Jehan had given up trying to call him out on it.) Bahorel and Grantaire were trailing a little behind, engaged in an argument that would have been heated if either of them cared enough to make it that. Jehan and Combeferre listened, Mae at their heels, who would sometimes give off a soft yelping sound when they were moving too quickly for her taste.

“You realise that the less you tell me about it, the worse I'll assume,” Bahorel declared behind them, loud enough for the whole street to hear. “What did you think would happen when you disappeared with Enjolras for two hours, we'd just shrug and let it be?”

“Everyone else seems to be able to,” Grantaire said. “No worries, though; if we'd defiled the eyrie and made it unsuitable for further use, I'd probably let you know. I'm not a gentleman.”

“Bullshit. If you'd defiled the eyrie, you'd keep it a carefully guarded secret to protect the privacy of everyone involved, because you're a goner like that, and that's what's worrying me. I don't even want details, just the assurance that no one has to scrub the floor with bleach up there.”

“That's a gift you only just refused to accept,” Grantaire said. “Make up your mind, or stay unsatisfied.”

“I still don't get where all that fascination with him is coming from,” Bahorel said. He genuinely sounded a little distressed about it. “I mean, what is it? You can't be one of those people who are dead sure his mum's going to liberate the magical world.”

Grantaire snorted. “That's never happening. Plus, what do I care? Let gifted people move in the shadows for twenty more centuries to come! We're all better off that way.”

Combeferre didn't turn around, but raised a hand for Grantaire to see. “I heard that.”

“So did I,” Jehan said and looked back at him, “but I don't mind. There's probably an argument to be made there.”

“Of course there is!” Grantaire spread out his arms. “Just think about it. Let's say Madame Enjolras takes the leap and sits down with the President and they have a two hour back and forth in which she somehow convinces him that magic is real. And I have to add here that we have no idea if that's been done before – we say it'd be the first time, but who knows? Everyone's acting like there was never a gifted person in political power, but we can't really tell for sure – even if she was successful, it'd be meaningless. The only outcomes in case the public is made aware are complete chaos, I mean, I'm talking calls for genocide here, with entire movements denying your existence, or –” Grantaire had apparently noticed Bahorel's lack of engagement in the topic and moved forward, now walking backwards in front of Combeferre and Jehan, “or actual acceptance, followed by commodification, in which case we could expect Combeferre to be stuck reading the minds of chimpanzees in a lab in the US, and Jehan to sit in the back of a van with tape over his mouth somewhere because the Mafia would like him to hex their enemies. Now there's something to look forward to, right?”

“I've given that some thought before,” Combeferre said, “and I don't think I could understand the thoughts of chimpanzees, even with a lot of effort. It's more likely that they're too intelligent for me to read – not that I've had the chance to try – but I think they're already too close to humans. I imagine I'd have a similar problem with dolphins.”

Grantaire frowned, surprised enough to fall right into the obvious trap that attempted a change of topic. “Ever tried crows?”

“Yes. They're abstract, but understandable. At least most of the time – I never tried to check more than whether or not they like me.” He cleared his throat. “Most don't.”

“What about Mae?”

Combeferre shared a look with Jehan, and Jehan smiled. Combeferre and Jehan's little fox familiar had a difficult relationship, which Jehan considered founded in the idea that Mae, unlike most other animals Combeferre had read before, was very aware that she was being read, and not particularly thrilled about it. Combeferre kept his intrusions to her thoughts to an absolute minimum, only trying to read her when she seemed to deliberately seek him out – in most cases, that was, to communicate to him somehow that Jehan had gotten himself into trouble.

“We have,” Combeferre said slowly, “an understanding.”

“That's actually a shame about the dolphins,” Jehan mused. “They must have beautiful minds. What do you think they'd say, if you could?”

Without a second of delay, Grantaire and Combeferre answered simultaneously – “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

Jehan sighed. “Walked right into that one, didn't I. It was a serious question! Dolphins have quite complex emotional lives; I've read that they experience love in way that's very similar to ours.”

“My cue to leave,” Grantaire said, “as I have nothing of value to contribute.”

Bahorel groaned audibly, and Grantaire grinned.

“Kidding, I just have to take that turn. See you around, everyone.”

They echoed goodnights and goodbyes, and Jehan watched Grantaire's silhouette retreat, lost in thought for a moment. Grantaire was always so elusive, and at the same time so violently open that everything he admitted about himself felt like an attack. Jehan wouldn't be as unguarded as Bahorel had been about it, but whatever had played out between him and Enjolras must be interesting.

Mae yelped. He was walking too slowly for her now.

“For the record,” Bahorel was saying as Jehan caught up, “I did notice that you both deliberately put him off the topic, and that's all fine and well, but I didn't get an answer.”

“On why Grantaire's so interested in Enjolras?” Combeferre frowned. “Isn't that obvious?”

“No? Enjolras is non-magical and hot; so am I.”

Jehan shook his head. “It's not about having magic or not, it's about how you came to be aware of it despite not being gifted. You had your life saved by a clairvoyant friend who couldn't possibly have known you were currently being beaten up in an alley; Joly had a boyfriend who kept claiming to see ghosts; the list goes on, but Enjolras and Grantaire both grew up with magic in their families.”

“Lots of expectations are tied to that,” Combeferre went on. “Think about how very minimal the chance is for even only one gifted parent to have a child without a gift. It happens so rarely that I've never met anyone outside the two of them who was in the situation. And it's – I mean, depending on how a parent deals with that, it can have a disastrous effect on a child's self esteem.”

“Huh.” Bahorel rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them. “Why be all magical in front of a kid without a gift, anyway? Aren't they best off unaware of the whole thing?”

“It's not always possible,” Combeferre replied. “That is. It _is_ always possible, my parents did it, but what reason would you have for hiding your magic from your child when you're certain it's going to have a gift of its own? And gifts don't show for a pretty long time, so most children will be assumed gifted until proven otherwise.”

“I think Grantaire mentioned telekinesis running in his family,” Jehan said. “Which shows pretty clearly in children, if you're looking for it.” The thought struck a nerve with Jehan, suddenly, that a little Grantaire had probably desperately held his fingers out to objects across the room and wondered why he couldn't get them to move, had possibly repeated that countless times in an attempt to overcome what he must have perceived as failure. What he perhaps still perceived as one.

“Considering that,” said Combeferre, who looked surprised; that information must have been news to him, “it might even be lucky that he only left the room when Marius was so engrossed in his story. That scenario could have gone a million different ways.”

“Poor Marius,” Bahorel said, laughing now. “His face when I walked in, fuck, did you see that? He's certainly been put through a lot today.”

“Oh, what was that about? Because I noticed, but it didn't make sense for you to know each other –”

Jehan was interrupted by Combeferre putting a hand to his arm, and shaking his head slightly. “I don't think those details are for us to know.”

“For the sake of Pontmercy's honour,” Bahorel said, still grinning, “I shall remain silent.”

Bahorel left them at the next junction, bidding Mae goodbye by tossing her a handful of his trail mix.

“You're all being too nice to her,” Jehan said, pushing his arm under Combeferre's as they watched Mae pick nuts and raisins off the pavement. “I think it's spoiled her character.”

“She _is_ a fox,” Combeferre said. “I'm not completely certain there was ever much character to spoil.”

Jehan laughed. “Well, she'll like you all the worse just for saying that.”

“She doesn't see enough of us to be spoiled by our company, I think,” Combeferre said. Jehan would always detect that mild tone of reprimand, however much Combeferre tried to mask it. “You haven't been around much,” Combeferre added. “Is everything all right?”

Jehan watched Mae. He wasn't sure if there was a good answer to this – too many things were in motion, everything seemed to demand his attention at once. “I've been busy,” he said, but it was more evasive than Combeferre deserved. “I'm worried,” he added. “I've had some customers lately that... I think they weren't looking for help as much as information? It doesn't feel right to me, but I might be imagining that. I don't want to make a fuss over nothing.”

Mae had finished her dinner of trail mix and started running ahead; Combeferre and Jehan turned to follow. “What exactly makes you think there's something wrong?” Combeferre asked. “Aren't most people who come to dark alleys for help a little shady?”

“In a different way, maybe,” Jehan said. “They're not rich, they need help, they haven't led the most honest lives, perhaps, but they're rarely bad people. I send Mae ahead, normally, sort of as a personality test? Anyone who isn't nice to her doesn't get to see me.”

Combeferre smiled. “That's one way of weeding out the bad ones,” he said. “How reliable is it?”

“Not as reliable as I'd hoped, apparently,” Jehan said. “Someone the other day was obviously waiting for me to slip, I think they were after information about the ABC, but I'm also reasonably sure they didn't know I was a part of it. I just...” He trailed off, frustrated. So far, he hadn't mentioned this to anyone because he hadn't been sure in his suspicions yet, and he hadn't mentioned it to Combeferre in particular because Combeferre was sure to worry. He'd already said too much now to be able to backtrack. “Have you heard anything lately? Anything out of the ordinary, at the Musain, maybe, or from your family?”

“Just the same old rumours,” Combeferre said. Jehan squeezed his arm. “Do you think we should start taking them seriously?”

“I can't say yet.” Jehan took a look around, and frowned. “I think we're actually getting further away from your place with every step we take; you should have said something.”

“You just implied that there might be a city-wide magical conspiracy in the works,” Combeferre said, “and you expect me not to walk you home after that?”

“If anything, I should be walking you home,” Jehan sighed. “Combeferre, I can make someone's feet catch on fire with a snap of my fingers and a line from a Baudelaire poem.”

“Exactly,” Combeferre said. “Which is why people looking to make profit are far more likely to be after you than me.”

“There should be an expression,” Jehan mused, “for well-meaning concern beyond reason. _Sollicitudo Combeferris_. What do you think?”

Combeferre laughed. “You know, I'd love to be offended, but that would discredit your effort.”

“I might use it for a spell some time.” Jehan thought for a moment. “Neologisms always work well with more out-of-the-box things... What would you like for it to do, if you had a personal spell?”

“Oh. That's – hm.” He brushed Jehan's hand with his knuckles, and took it when he noticed how cold it had become. “To keep people's hands warm, maybe.”

“That one's already taken.”

“All right; my back-up idea is a little less pretty,” Combeferre admitted. “I've always thought it would be nice to have a spell that could change the typeface of printed texts.”

“That can't be so difficult,” Jehan said. It was, most likely, very difficult – ink wasn't living matter in any way, therefore more stubborn, and paper tended to be quite immovable, too – but Jehan enjoyed a challenge. “What would you use it for?”

“Aesthetic reasons would be the most obvious purpose.” He smiled. “But it might also really help the kids at school. Some of them just need bigger letters, and there's no definite study on how different fonts can be helpful for children with dyslexia, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to try, and the relation between spacing and reading speed is definitely proven –”

“I'll get on it,” Jehan promised. “The Combeferrian sorrows: a font-changing spell. I love that. You'll revolutionise children's education after all.”

Combeferre laughed softly. “It _would_ be something like that, if I was ever going to be famous for anything.”

They said goodbye at the gate of Jehan's building, not only to each other, but also to Mae, who liked to roam at night and come back in the morning with news, or just having had adventures that she kept to herself. Jehan tried to nudge her into the direction of maybe following Combeferre, but she had too much of a mind of her own for that to be reliable. And she had preferences – Jehan could never figure out how she decided who she liked and who she didn't, but there was barely any overlap with Jehan's own affections, which certainly didn't make things easier.

He was desperate for sleep; he'd had to be up early for a shift today and the days and nights before that had sometimes required him to scrap rest altogether. Once he'd made it to his flat on the upper floor, it took him seconds to fall asleep, and it felt as if only seconds had passed before he was woken again by the shrill ringing of his doorbell, cruel and unwelcome.

He staggered to the door and pressed the buzzer without thinking. If someone had come to clean out one of the apartments, Jehan was best-suited out of anyone in the house to intervene, and there was always the chance that one of his friends had made their way here in the dead of night without warning him first. Nothing that hadn't happened before.

Through the door, he could hear slow, dragging steps on the staircase. Anxious, he flexed his left hand. He was still tired, not to mention in his pyjamas, which left him armed with little but his nail polish and some small charms woven into his bracelet. He leaned his forehead against the door to look through the spy hole, and groaned.

A customer, one he'd become familiar enough with in the last few weeks, was waiting there, and Jehan might have refused to open if it hadn't been for Mae who was flitting around right behind said customer, excited and nervous.

He slid the door chain out of the way and opened, and the customer, who seemed to have been leaning against the door, almost fell into his arms. In the customer's defence, he didn't look as if he should be standing at all; he looked as if he should be lying down, preferably on a hospital bed.

“Hello there,” he said, and held a hand under his nose to stop a slow trickle of blood. “Witch.”

“Monsieur Montparnasse,” Jehan said. He let Mae slip into the flat beside him. “Perhaps the wrong moment to point this out, but I hope you're aware that nightly visits aren't exactly indicative of a healthy customer relationship.”

“I agree,” Montparnasse said. “But you should know that your pet sought _me_ out. It's not like I summoned her.”

He was in too terrible a state to sound suave, and Jehan sometimes wanted to tell him that the charade wasn't necessary in the first place – he'd seen him flustered already, his ego so clearly bruised in Mae's personality test right before their first meeting. That was part of the reason Jehan had considered him harmless enough to take him on as a client, because not only had his one-sided conversation with Mae been hilarious, Jehan had also broken his judgement down to one question: how dangerous could someone who got embarrassed over an encounter with a fox possibly be?

And in his answer to that, he'd apparently been wrong.

“Are you hurt anywhere that I can't see?” he asked, and, because he was unlikely to turn away the literal devil if they showed up wounded on his doorstep, he carefully guided Montparnasse inside to lay down on the couch. “And I suppose you already know that you're better off in a hospital in any case?”

“Oh, I'm really not,” Montparnasse said, fell silent for a moment, and then added, “That's the answer to both questions.”

The couch was going to suffer – it was already suffering, Jehan noticed, the torn skin on Montparnasse's knuckles having smeared little traces of blood over the cushions. “Are you feeling dizzy?” He walked over to the kitchenette. “Nauseous, disoriented?”

“No, no, and a little,” Montparnasse said from the couch. “Your fox is quick on her feet; I'm not completely sure where we are.”

Jehan knelt down next to the couch and handed him a glass of water. “Is it pointless to ask how this happened?” he said, dropping a painkiller into Montparnasse's palm. He didn't fail to notice how it stayed there even as Montparnasse pretended to swallow it down with water.

“Yes,” Montparnasse said.

“Right,” Jehan said. “Listen, I'm not asking for details, but I need to know if this... happened to you, or if _you_ ,” he paused, seeking for a better way to phrase his thoughts, “happened to someone.”

Montparnasse took his time coming up with a response. “Both,” he said then, softly. He drank a little more water. “I didn't mean to come here. Your pet, she was just there suddenly, and... I wasn't thinking. I wasn't trying to –” He paused and wiped at his nose again. “I wouldn't have tried to find you.”

Whether or not this was a good or bad quality in him, Jehan wasn't sure, but he was inclined to believe Montparnasse. That aside, those injuries were real, and it pained Jehan to merely look at them. He couldn't have let Montparnasse know, but sending him away had been out of the question from the beginning, and now, even asking further questions felt like the wrong thing to do.

So he didn't ask further questions. He helped Montparnasse out of his heavy jacket, gave him ice for his bruised ribs, helped him apply ointment to the raw skin on his knuckles, gave him pomegranate juice to drink (“What's this good for?” “Everything.”), dimmed the light to relieve the strain on his eyes, and stayed with him to watch out for signs of the dizziness and disorientation Montparnasse was denying. It would be an easier procedure if he actually knew what had happened, but such things were not to be.

About everything but his current situation, though, Montparnasse talked more than Jehan had ever known him to. Granted, every conversation they'd had so far had been a business transaction, but even so, Montparnasse had never seemed the chatty type. And Jehan didn't get the impression he was talking so much now because he necessarily wanted to, either.

“Why no magic tricks?” Montparnasse moved the bag of ice Jehan had wrapped in a dish towel from his ribs to his face to press it against a bruise high on his cheekbone. “Aren't there, I don't know, wound-healing spells? Just to speed things up?”

“You have a witch friend,” Jehan said, because that much he knew. Montparnasse had mentioned her, probably against his better judgement. “Shouldn't you know that?”

Something in Montparnasse's face twisted before he could smooth it over. The reaction was slowed either by pain, or by the fact that he had ice on his face. “That's not,” he said, and halted again. Maybe that was why he never talked much, words didn't come easily to him when he wasn't trying to seem scary. “She doesn't do that kind of magic.”

“I see.” This, they had also touched upon before, when Jehan had asked, once, why Montparnasse would come to him when he had several magical acquaintances as it was. The answer had been similar to now, something about none of them being able to help with the things Montparnasse wanted. “Well, neither do I,” Jehan said. “That is – I do, or I could, but it's a lot less effective than aspirin and Peru balsam. Although I suppose that last one was only established for medicine through magical help...” He cleared his throat. “The point is, I'd rather save my ingredients for things that require them. Like your self-heating gloves.”

“Hm.” Montparnasse moved the ice again. “Your place is nice,” he said after more silence. Jehan was sitting at his feet at the end of the sofa, mainly staying there to keep Montparnasse under observation – at least until he fell asleep. He had to, eventually, and he was already beginning to sound drowsy. “I didn't know there were witches with money.”

“Most witches have a day job.”

“What's yours?”

“A secret.”

“Doesn't really look like a witch lives here, either,” Montparnasse went on, undeterred. “Where's everything you need? The – the magic things?”

“I can't imagine you're really asking that and expecting an answer,” Jehan said. “That wouldn't be fair, don't you think? Considering you let me know nothing about what happened to you.”

Montparnasse hummed again. His eyes slipped closed, and he half-heartedly disguised it by blinking. “You should talk to your pet,” he said. “She had no business being where I was.”

“Somehow I doubt _you_ had any business being there.”

“I had more of it than a fox.” The hand holding the ice bag to his ribs kept slipping down, and he pulled it back up like a petulant child every time. “I'm,” he said, moving to get up, “I – should leave. Before I pass out on your couch.”

“I've been contemplating spelling you asleep for the past twenty minutes,” Jehan said, and then, softer, “It's okay, Montparnasse.”

Montparnasse narrowed his eyes at him; it was hard to tell whether in suspicion or confusion. Jehan wasn't expecting a 'thank you,' and he didn't get one, before the boy on the couch let himself drift off to sleep.

“What would I use for a sleeping spell if that was doable, Mae?” Jehan whispered to his familiar, who was curled up near the door. She blinked. Jehan didn't mean to stare, but his eyes lingered on Montparnasse for just a few seconds. He looked pitiful in his sleep, any pretence of grandeur he kept up to distract from his threadbare clothes and hungry frame wiped away. “Cinquefoil and Keats, I think,” Jehan murmured at the sleeping form. “ _And when thou art weary, I'll find thee a bed_...”

Mae yelped.

“Right,” Jehan said. “To work.”

The things he now had to work on had slowly started to put themselves together in Jehan's mind the second he'd opened the door to find Montparnasse stumbling inside. It was all too much at once – the dubious customers lately, the rumours, the way Jehan always thought to see strangers linger outside the bookshop, and now a customer beaten and bloody on his doorstep.

Jehan moved from the couch to sit in an armchair at the opposite wall, pulling Montparnasse's jacket with him. He turned it inside out, inspecting the lining – it must have been an expensive piece, once, and had been worn down in daily use.

The small pair of scissors in Jehan's jack knife sufficed to cut open the seams at the hemline, carefully separating the lining just enough to create a small opening. Jehan bunched the jacket up in his arms and gave Mae a long look. “Please don't tell me you're so gone for him that you'll refuse to let me know if he wakes up.”

She tilted her head, just a little, and then left her post at the door to sit beside the couch. Jehan supposed that was answer enough.

Montparnasse had been right to notice the lack of witchery in Jehan's apartment, although Jehan blamed his exhaustion and confusion for the fact that he had genuinely been surprised by it. Jehan's place _was_ nice, and it wouldn't come off well with the landlord to fill it with an assortment of spell ingredients.

At least not if it was done where anyone could see it.

The apartment had come with a small attic compartment that could be accessed through a scuttle hole in the hallway, and Jehan had started using the four extra square meters as his secret lair the day he'd moved in. With a proper stacking system, it easily held everything Jehan needed, and in situations like this, it had the advantage of him not having to reveal all of his secrets when he'd already been forced to reveal some.

He found what he needed in a box that was already gathering dust, tucked away behind cotton bags and old ceramics. _Patras 2014_ , the label read, and Jehan smiled. Greece – now there was a gold mine for anyone looking to pilfer little things for spells.

It didn't take long. Breaking apart one of the two seashells with a mortar hurt his heart, and he didn't feel like his whispered apologies were very well-received. The spell still had to work, though, it _had_ to, personal seashell-resentments be damned. He had no time to cast a circle, and his work was more rushed than usual, but with things as they were, the more heavy-handed spellwork would have to do.

Guilt pricked at him only for a moment, just as he pushed the finished sachet into the lining of Montparnasse's coat. Up until tonight, Jehan hadn't thought to connect him to whatever sinister business seemed to creep through magical Paris, tiny as it was. The things Montparnasse had asked for had always been simple – to keep his coat spotless even in the worst weather, to make sure his gloves were actually warming instead of just trapping the cold of his fingers, to be protected from malicious spells. He'd also never asked questions, never failed to be on time, never refused pay (and why should he; he paid in gossip and probably made-up treasured memories. Jehan hadn't found it in himself to ask for anything else). The point was, Jehan hadn't minded him as a customer, and Mae hopelessly adored him, so there had been little reason to distrust him so far.

Tonight had been one coincidence too many. Jehan went back downstairs after he'd sewn the seam back in, and carefully spread the jacket over Montparnasse's shoulders. It was almost surprising how soundly he slept in a strange place; he didn't seem like the type to be able to rest undisturbed too often. Perhaps that was the reason.

Jehan sat down by the couch to lean against the wall, and Mae was next to him in an instant, nudging his hand with her nose until he curled fingers into the fur of her neck, petting her. “No need to worry,” he whispered, and glanced at Montparnasse. “He's going to be fine.”

Resigned, he grabbed a book at random from the coffee table, and made peace with another night without sleep.


	4. Services

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Marius sees ghosts, Grantaire fails to solve a puzzle, and Musichetta has a client.

Marius had started enjoying being at the ABC bookstore about two weeks after he'd first gone there – that was how long it had taken him to figure out the idiosyncrasies of the group, the unwritten rules of conduct, the little things no one told you because they came naturally to everyone else. For Marius specifically, a small set of the most important rules ran:

  1. Don't mention politics,

  2. Don't mention your father's politics,

  3. No telekinesis around Grantaire.




That last one, he was glad to say, wasn't – like the other two – the result of a rather unpleasant and slightly hurtful conversation with someone from the group, but an observation he'd made for himself.

Not completely on his own, as he had to admit: Courfeyrac had helped a little by giving Marius a brief rundown of almost everyone in the group; their gifts, how they'd come to be here, their stories. There had been too many to remember in detail, but Grantaire's had stuck with Marius, if only because Courfeyrac had commented his biography with a shrug and the words “Pretty much like you, just in complete reverse, so, sort of shitty.” Even without that, it would be impossible not to be aware of Grantaire: he was at the ABC every time Marius was there, and some of the others confirmed that in his free time, he was seldom anywhere else. It would probably not have been very noticeable, had Grantaire been someone with a less boisterous personality, but if Marius had been slightly intimidated by Courfeyrac when they'd first met, he was terrified of Grantaire. No one seemed quite safe from his running commentary, and even though it hadn't been directed at Marius in particular so far, Marius couldn't imagine it would take him long. He was derisive about everything and everyone, and sooner or later, anyone who entered the bookshop would be subject to his scorn – except, possibly, for Enjolras.

They were together when Marius came in, sharing a table with Joly near the old check-out counter and talking animatedly. Marius had asked Courfeyrac about their friendship, too, when he'd first started to find it strange. It didn't seem to add up properly to him: Grantaire was extroverted where Enjolras was the opposite, and excessive where Enjolras was composed. By all accounts, they shouldn't get along with each other, and Courfeyrac hadn't offered much insight either. “Pontmercy – some mysteries are doomed to remain as such.” After knowing Courfeyrac for this long, Marius supposed he was lucky not more of his questions were answered that way.

The past few months had, after all, helped considerably in forming Marius into a person who accepted mysteries more readily. Not everything required an explanation anymore; he had learned to take certain things in stride. This challenge had started with his father's letters, continued with the number of books he'd devoured in order to make sense of them, and found its culmination in the Musain and with Courfeyrac. All of those things had forced him to suspend his disbelief, and by now, he had become quite adept at it. It was probably impressive that Enjolras and Grantaire managed to pose a riddle to him even after all those new revelations.

There was another thing he hadn't quite been able to shake, even with his newly acquired tolerance for impossibilities. He still wasn't entirely confident he wasn't imagining it, and in consequence, he hadn't mustered the courage to tell anyone about the things he saw moving out of the corner of his eye sometimes, the feeling he too often couldn't shake that someone had their eyes on him – it would sound entirely too paranoid to bring up, but it was hard to let go of.

Almost as soon as he walked in, Marius was offered a place on the couch next to Feuilly, who was engaged in a card game with Bahorel and a girl Marius didn't know. “Did you see someone outside?” Marius asked as he unwrapped his scarf. He tried to sound casual and failed miserably.

“Lots of people,” Feuilly said. “We're near a busy street.” Even though the answer betrayed that he must have found the question pointless, the words weren't biting. Marius liked that about him. Being around Feuilly always felt safe; he didn't have a vicious bone in his body. In Marius' second week here, Feuilly had given him a paper crane mobile for seemingly no reason other than friendliness. He'd shrugged at Marius' confusion, and told him to consider it a welcome gift. “I always fold too many of those things anyway.”

“I meant,” Marius said, “someone in particular? Was it weird out there, sort of like – did any of you guys feel _watched_?”

Three heads lifted slowly to look at him, and Marius wanted to get up and walk straight back out.

“No,” Feuilly said, and Bahorel got to his feet to walk over to the fridge. “Did you?”

“I'm not sure,” Marius said, and instantly corrected himself, “yes, I did, kind of. I'm – I might have imagined it.”

“Maybe a ghost,” the girl said and smiled. “Who knows? We're not so far from Montparnasse Cemetery.”

“But I wouldn't...” Marius shook his head, and was too flustered not to reach for the soda Bahorel handed him. It was the nice kind, the kind that donated to clean water research for every sold can. “I, uh. No, thank you.” Awkwardly, he tried to hand it back, and Bahorel frowned.

“Don't tell me you're one of those 'Grape Soda is an abomination'-people.”

“No! Not at all, I just – I don't take stuff from the fridge, I feel like I shouldn't when I never contribute.”

“That's turning the system upside down, kid. The point is for people to contribute if they can. You don't have money, you get free soda.” He grinned. “Young pupil, meet the principle of solidarity, or as I like to call it, common fucking sense.”

Marius accepted the soda quietly, reminding himself to stick to rule number one. He was too glad to be able to talk to Bahorel while looking him in the eyes to endanger their fragile friendship; that had already taken long enough.

“You should talk to Prouvaire if you think something's fishy,” the girl said, smiling kindly. “He's been a little on the investigative side lately; seems convinced of a magical conspiracy in the depths of Paris' underworld.”

“Hey, it's not as unfounded as you make it sound,” Bahorel said. “Jehan hears a lot, Pontmercy. Probably even more than I do. Not a bad idea to ask him about that kind of thing.”

“Maybe,” Marius said, having no intention to talk to Jehan. Feuilly looked up from his hand and smiled.

“Scared of him?”

“I'm – I'm sorry?”

“It's fine.” Feuilly set down a seven of hearts. Marius wasn't even sure what game they were playing. Was that Rami? “Lots of people think he's a little intimidating. He works really hard to make them think that, but he couldn't hurt a fly.”

“I mean, he _could_ ,” Bahorel said. “Burn one up right in flight. But he wouldn't.”

“I don't think you're helping, guys,” the girl said. “Hey. Jehan's eccentric, but he's sweet. He keeps all this mystery stuff up because it helps him get clients, and keeps unsavoury people at a distance. He doesn't bite if you just talk to him, I promise.”

“How does he do it, though?” Marius blurted out, because this had been on his mind, and he'd never brought it up for fear of everyone else being in on an obvious answer. The others' looks at him confirmed this suspicion. “The – his magic,” Marius said, more quietly. “He's not a normal witch, is he?”

“Oh.” Feuilly smiled. “You mean the...” He moved his hands, and Marius nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “Doesn't he – I've been wondering this ever since I met him; is everything I read about witches just wrong? How can he cast spells like that, without ingredients or – anything? How can he just snap his fingers; that's not how it's supposed to be, is it?”

“A keen observation.” Bahorel grinned. “It's not really our secret to tell, I guess. But it is a lot less impressive once you know.”

More often than not, his questions weren't answered, and Marius wasn't entirely sure why he still went to the length of asking them. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

“You'll think it's a cheap trick,” Feuilly said. His smile was knowing, and Marius felt hopeless.

“That's impossible.”

“Oh, you'll see.”

Marius didn't think that he would.

Later, when he'd scurried out of the bookshop and was about to make for the métro station, he stood for a moment, letting the silence and half-dark of the street settle around him. He never seemed to be quite alone in the silence these days, as if he had acquired a second shadow, something that kept a permanent watch on him. It was hardly more than a feeling, but it was there, and it was real, and Marius had the sudden urge to do something about it, if only because so many other things had gone unanswered today.

“Hello,” he said into the darkness. It felt silly, and undoubtedly was. “I'm here,” he said, a little more softly, “and I know you are.” Silence. As much as was possible in a street like this, just off the main road. “It's okay,” he said, half to himself. “It's okay, I know you're here.” More silence followed, and Marius closed his eyes for a moment, letting himself feel.

Some of his senses, he'd had too much time to hone, and some things, he was too familiar with not to recognise anywhere. After so many years of it, and after accepting it as his own personal status quo, after carefully having let the sensation of it sink into himself until it had felt like being hollowed out from the inside, Marius could always tell when he was alone.

And right now, he wasn't.

“It's okay,” he said, again. “Please, I – I just want to talk.”

He waited for a longer time than felt at all appropriate, staying even as the street remained quiet for another long while, and only leaving when he heard the rattling of the métro coming into the station below him.

 

_December_

 

Proud as Musichetta may have been of being the most talented seer of her family, she wouldn't have needed her gift to tell that the girl in the olive green coat was here for a reading. She had that look about her, wary and curious, trying to tell herself that she expected nothing, and clearly hoping for everything. “R,” Musichetta leaned forward to wave Grantaire over, “R, get in here.”

Grantaire pulled his chair behind him as he padded over. He seemed perpetually tired these days, but not in a terrible way, Musichetta thought. There was a good kind of tired, after all, the kind that followed a good night out or a great conversation that had lasted until morning. “About time,” he said, squeezing into the vendor's space next to her. “Is a low like this normal? Are people suddenly indifferent to the future just because we're nearing Christmas?”

“There's always a New Year's rush to make up for it,” Chetta said, and smiled at the girl who'd come up to the booth. “Hi there, how can I help you?”

The girl didn't smile back. Her fingers drummed against the counter, and she sized both of them up, her eyes wandering. “I'd like yesterday's issue of _Le Temps_ , please,” she said.

“Right here in the back, just come around.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes as Chetta squeezed by him to get into the back. “Lamest code _ever_ ,” he muttered, and she didn't stop the door from hitting him in the side as she closed it behind herself.

The girl had already let herself in. She fit into the cramped space easily, hands buried deep in the pockets of her coat and inspecting a wind chime hung up next to the door.

Musichetta didn't put much effort into keeping the back clean, because the dim half-light and the absolute clutter in it contributed quite well to the mood people expected when they came here. Delivery boxes were stacked high against the walls, a single, tiny window fastened with a latch let in beams of daylight through milky glass, and specks of dust danced wherever the light fell. There was a low table (made up of four bottle crates; she'd made a point of putting as little money as possible into setting up her side-business) she kept covered with a large tea cloth, with just enough space to both sides of it for two cheap plastic chairs.

“All right, then.” Chetta, still smiling, pulled out one of the chairs. “Have a seat.”

The girl did. She hadn't finished taking in her surroundings, her looks darting around too quickly for Musichetta to follow. Focus was needed for this, Musichetta decided, and sometimes, chatting away was the best means to achieve it.

“I'm assuming this is your first reading; would you like me to talk you through it first, or do you have any questions about what's going to happen? Or about me, maybe?”

The girl looked straight at her now. Like this, it was obvious how young she must be – so small and bird-boned, with eyes that looked too large for her face. She couldn't be older than eighteen, entirely too young to be so constantly braced for impact. “Did you go to school for this?”

“Not exactly, no. I did take a class once – there's a school in London that's popular, and I thought I'd give it a try. Wasn't my cup of tea, though.” She grinned. “You know? Because it's England? Oh, speaking of which, would you like some tea? Or something else to drink?”

“No, thanks.” It probably wasn't a surprise that the girl wasn't susceptible to half-hearted attempts at humour, but it still pained Musichetta to see someone so young so serious. “Are you going to use cards?”

“You want to get right to it, then?” Musichetta moved to smooth out the tablecloth, and then reached down for a box in the shelf next to them. “Normally, I ask people if they have a preferred method, but of course, you'd have to be familiar with the methods for that. Are you?”

The girl faltered, her composure slipping for the first time. “A little,” she said. “I'm not sure if anything I know is true.”

Musichetta laughed. “Well, that can be remedied, at least.” She set the box down on the table between them and, as she took out her supplies one by one, she explained how they worked, what they were good for, when they were used. The girl listened intently, and she had such clever eyes that Musichetta had a feeling she'd be able to recite every explanation word by word if someone asked her to.

“So certain things work better for certain problems?” The girl was turning a wishbone in her hands. Musichetta, for some reason she couldn't put her finger on, thought that it looked at home there. “How do you know what to use?”

“It has a lot to do with intuition, but some things are just really literal.” Chetta pointed at the forked bone. “See, I used that one when a guy wanted to know if he was going to recover from injury. _Very_ unimaginative. I'd need a new one if you wanted to use one; this kind of thing doesn't recycle well.”

“What are you going to use for me, then?”

“That depends completely on what you'd like,” Musichetta said. “Do you feel like something might be right for you? Or do you have a question for me yet? I could pick something for you, too, if you like. As I said – intuition.”

The girl looked at the clutter of things on the table, and Musichetta saw her eyes flick once, quickly, to the potted vervain plant below the window. “I thought one of these would be good,” the girl said then, holding the wishbone out. Musichetta hadn't asked her for her name, because she looked as if she'd either lie or run away when confronted with that question, and both of those wouldn't help either of them.

“Are you sure?” Chetta took the bone from her. She had a box with unused ones lying around somewhere, but it went against every last of her instincts to use them on a young girl with doe eyes and a soft voice. “We can use those, absolutely, but maybe something different might suit you better. Do you like flowers?”

Silence. The back of the kiosk had a way of doing that, shutting everything else in the world out, even though the street they were on was busy and they were only separated from it by a thin layer of metal.

“As much as anyone,” the girl said finally, but her brow creased slightly – bewilderment, distrust. Musichetta had seen enough of that not to be put off by it.

“Great.” She turned and reached up for the plant and the nail clippers next to it, snipping off one of the stems. “Then this'll do just fine.”

Considering that she clearly wanted to know everything, the girl didn't talk a lot. Mainly, she watched, eyes drinking in every little gesture and detail hungrily, and Musichetta, for her own part, had a million questions she couldn't ask. The girl waited until the end, when everything was set up and a censer with coals had been placed between them, Musichetta patiently picking the vervain flower apart, to ask her own question, and she said in a quiet voice, her eyes fixed on the bowl, “Am I going to get out?”

 

Grantaire started to regret his excitement about Musichetta's first reading in two days when it had been twenty minutes, and said reading still wasn't done. Jehan had shown up halfway through those twenty minutes, Grantaire had supplied him with a cup of tea and had, despite a constant and rather engaging conversation, yet to find out why exactly Jehan was here.

It wasn't Jehan's fault, probably – Grantaire liked to think he wasn't a bad person to talk to, and always at least tried his hardest to pay attention to what the other person was saying, but there were situations that tested his listening abilities, and today, he was distracted.

Enjolras had been _talking_ to him lately. As in, seeking him out, bringing coffee up into the eyrie, genuinely sitting down and talking to him. At the beginning, Grantaire had been convinced the whole thing was a ploy to get back at him for a lost game of chess. They'd had a rematch, and then another one, and then several others, and Grantaire had lost most of them, because he genuinely was terrible at chess; he hadn't been modest that first time. Enjolras, for his part, had been distracted during their first match, and another mystery he posed was that Grantaire had never found out by what.

Both of those things were questions that currently weren't even at the top of Grantaire's list of strange things surrounding Enjolras. Sure, it was confusing to be considered a friend by him after six months of pining from a distance, and it would definitely have called for investigation if circumstances had been different. Currently, though, Grantaire was busy working through a realisation that had come to him as the final piece in a puzzle he had never realised was unfinished: Enjolras was a person that didn't make any sense.

He might have missed this, the way everyone else who knew Enjolras seemed to, because no one ever pointed out how little _sense_ Enjolras made. He might have missed it if he hadn't made it his one task in life to make sense of people, if observing, reading, understanding hadn't been etched into his mind by years of obsessive practice. People could still surprise him, obviously, and there was never a way to be certain in every aspect about everyone, but when someone refused to come together and add up into one coherent person, Grantaire couldn't help but find it frustrating.

There were times when Enjolras spoke as if he was trying to set the world on fire with his words. Grantaire hadn't discussed this with anyone, not only because there hadn't been reason to, but also because he specifically seemed to have a knack for provoking these tirades in Enjolras, and not a lot of people other than him ever heard them. He was political to the bone and it was impossible to see him separately from his opinions, but that, Grantaire didn't find too surprising: he _had_ grown up in a household built around politics, and the experiences he must have made would have formed him into this almost inevitably. He studied, he wrote, he thought; he had a list of causes that never seemed to end. He would talk about anything from that list for hours on end when provoked; there was a whole wealth of opinions hidden in those relatively still waters.

It was in one of those conversations that Grantaire, more because he'd wanted Enjolras to keep talking and less because he'd been genuinely curious, had asked where magic would fit into Enjolras' utopian visions. Enjolras had answered something along the lines of how obvious it was that in order for personal freedom to be ensured, the general public would have to be aware of the existence of magic and accept it as a truth, and Grantaire had pointed out what Enjolras, of course, had already known: that history had seen such a society come and go, and it hadn't had a lot to do with anyone's personal freedom.

“You're not taking the differentiation between believed magic and actual magic into account,” Enjolras had said easily, as if he'd had this conversation a hundred times before, unlikely as it was that he had. “Add to that the lack of advancement in science, and it's no surprise that medieval Europe wasn't prepared to integrate magic peacefully into their society.”

“So the advancement in science doesn't fundamentally counteract the chance for magic to be accepted? Man, I must have been watching the wrong show.”

“The only place that acceptance of magic could possibly come from is science.” Enjolras had looked so serious, so intent, and Grantaire had only been able to think that all these beautiful arguments were wasted on him. Enjolras should be in front of a worthier audience talking about these things, one of the handful of gatherings of gifted people in France, maybe, or even the collective rest of the ABC. “There's no point in turning to politics or the press with things they consider cheap tricks – the only reason the western world at large doesn't see magic is because no one has been able to understand it yet. We'd have surmounted the biggest obstacle on the way to a world in which magic can exist freely if anyone was able to describe it scientifically, to measure it, even.”

“Oh, I get it.” Grantaire had said. “Like in Philip Pullman. That's a cool idea.”

Grantaire had had a feeling that Enjolras might have looked offended at this, if he hadn't been expecting it. “It's not a flight of fancy, Grantaire, it's not just a theoretical idea. It's doable.”

“So why hasn't it been done yet?” A rhetorical question – Enjolras loved to recognise those and to answer them anyway.

“The tiny amount of scientific interest that's there is smothered in its cradle. No scientist who wants to spend money and time on researching magical phenomena could possibly be taken seriously, so then they lack funding, recognition...”

“That sounds like a very solvable problem,” Grantaire had said. The track they'd been following had been leading to a strange conclusion, and Grantaire had been curious to see if they were going to arrive at it.

“It is.”

“Solvable with something like government grants for research?”

“That's a possibility.”

“Introduced by someone like... the Minister of Higher Education and Research?”

Enjolras must have seen the question coming, but when he'd looked up at Grantaire, his expression had been hard. “You're assuming that my mother shares any of these opinions.”

“Oh, I didn't say her, specifically. It could be anyone in her position. Or anyone with a similar amount of influence. Or – anyone with a similar name, even.”

At that, Enjolras had softened, but only slightly, and that had been the point where he'd stopped making sense, because Enjolras wasn't elusive, and Grantaire had never seen him trying to circumvent a discussion, but he'd shaken his head and said, “I'm not sure what to make of the fact that you're simultaneously one of the worst and best partners in conversation I've ever had.”

Grantaire wondered, after that, what circumstance they could possibly have to thank for keeping Enjolras' magical activism to the foundation of a meet-up in an old bookshop, and for stopping him from having started a revolution.

“Hey.” Jehan squeezed his arm, and Grantaire jumped. They were sharing the single chair in the booth, probably looking anything but professional. Neither of them cared. It was a major city; people would buy their newspapers and diet cokes from anyone. “I have complete respect and understanding for you not listening to me, but you're still doing a job.”

Grantaire frowned, and Jehan nudged him with an elbow.

“Custom,” he whispered, in the same second that Lord Byron stepped up to the counter and fixed Grantaire with an expectant gaze, one eyebrow raised.

Lord Byron was a shoplifter and probably worse; his hand was wrapped in ratty, makeshift bandages as he handed over fifty cents for the cheapest newspaper on their rack. He also deliberately knocked a box of gum packets off the counter and slipped two miniatures into his sleeve when Grantaire and Jehan both leaned down to pick them up, and then, as he asked for a hot chocolate to go, Grantaire was reasonably sure that a pack of cigarettes disappeared in his pocket as well. He was unlikely to be an addict, though, and miniatures and cigarettes were clever things to steal – easy to trade.

Grantaire handed over the hot chocolate with a muttered “On the house,” because it was December and cold and the season of giving. Byron gave him a suspicious look but was, by Grantaire's best guess, too cold and too broke to look a gift horse in the mouth. What followed was a strange interval of about ten seconds where he didn't leave, and since he had said a total of eight words throughout this entire transaction, Grantaire didn't feel like an attempt at small talk would be too welcome. They were relieved of this when Musichetta's client came around from the back, and, without saying a word, grabbed Lord Byron by the sleeve and tugged him away.

“Right,” Grantaire said and looked at Jehan, examining. “That wasn't weird. Tell me, how do you know our friend, the smooth criminal?”

“Your brain is brilliant, but a nuisance,” Jehan said, and Grantaire didn't have time to be offended before Musichetta opened the door from the back.

“Okay,” she said, disapproving. “Three is two too many. Out with you both.”

“No, hang on, Chetta, I need something from you!” Jehan tried to turn around and found that he didn't have enough space. “Do you still have dried hyssop, by any chance? I'm out, and it's urgent; I don't have time to wait for a delivery.”

“You're out? You, Monsieur Always-Well-Stocked?”

Jehan looked up at her, and wow, Grantaire hadn't been at the receiving end of those yet, but Jehan absolutely had puppy eyes that went in for the kill. “Please? It's an emergency.”

“No worries, I've got you.” Smiling, she squeezed his shoulder. “Witch code of honour, and so forth.”

“You're an angel.”

She disappeared into the back again, and Grantaire cleared his throat. “So. Comments on the giaour himself?”

Jehan sighed. “I thought we did a great job of pretending not to recognise each other.”

“No, _he_ did. You're a terrible liar, even when you don't open your mouth.” Jehan hadn't stopped glancing back and forth between his own fidgeting hands and their elusive customer, all the while completely tense against Grantaire's side. “Anyway, you don't need to tell me. Unless you're unaware of the whole thief-thing, but I'm guessing...”

“Oh, I'm aware.” Jehan pulled a face. “I mean, sort of. It's all good, though, there's no need to worry.”

“Huh.” Grantaire hoped so, but all reassurances seemed half-convincing these days. Something was in the air, and it annoyed Grantaire that he wasn't able to put his finger on what it was. “He was surprised, too, if that helps,” he said. “He wasn't here for you.”

Jehan nodded, lost in thought. “No,” he murmured, “No, I didn't think so.”

Musichetta was back with a small paper bag in a second, and Jehan thanked her elaborately until she ushered him out. “What's this?” she asked, catching Grantaire as he tried to sneak a ten euro bill into her register. “Since when do you reverse-steal?”

“Making up for my own misguided attempts at kindness,” Grantaire said. He swung himself over the counter and landed on his feet on the pavement. Musichetta narrowed her eyes at him, but Grantaire couldn't find it in himself to do anything more engaged than shrug. “It's a mad world, my friend.”

 

The hot chocolate was rich and warm and sweeter than anything Éponine had ever tasted. She kept both of her hands around it as they walked, quicker than most people could keep up with, down rue de Rome and towards the less crowded side streets. “You realise that I would have found my way back on my own,” she said. Montparnasse seemed surprised, but less at her statement and more at the fact that she was talking at all.

“Actually, I was there because Azelma asked me to be.”

Éponine gripped the cup tighter, crunching the paper. This wasn't Montparnasse trying to placate a concerned younger sister – 'Azelma' might as well mean 'your parents,' and Éponine spent as much time as she could not thinking about that. “Three strikes and you're out,” she said quietly. “At this rate, I'll stop telling you things before you know it.”

“They're looking for you because they need input on the bookshop.”

His eyes were on her, steadily waiting for her to give herself away, and deliberately, she stayed iron.

“Why keep lying about it?” He spoke softly, as if he was trying to be gentle. Éponine wanted to throw the hot drink in his face. “You wouldn't have gone back so often if there was really nothing there. I know that, and so do they.”

“They didn't have to know about me going back,” Éponine said. The cup was held by her fingertips now; she didn't feel like hot chocolate anymore. “They didn't have to know about anything. I _asked_ you to keep quiet, Montparnasse.”

Montparnasse knew too much, but even he didn't know everything. He didn't know she'd been at the bookstore almost every night; he didn't know she'd been keeping an eye on the boy with the snow even when he wasn't at the store, following him to his apartment building, tracking his way to school, never with a clear idea of what she was hoping for. He had led her to the kiosk, too, eventually; he'd bought his coffee there and had seemed familiar with the kiosk girl to the point where they'd looked conspiratorial even when they were just making conversation. It hadn't taken much to go from there – the girl's divination service was listed in the phonebook, not at all distinguishable from those offers of non-gifted people trying their hand at the same thing.

She'd been exactly the way Éponine had imagined, the kiosk girl with a second job, a fortune teller hiding in plain sight. Éponine hadn't mentioned her own magic to the girl, but she must have known – surely, a psychic would sense magic in another person, and if not that, it would be obvious from the signs she interpreted. She had done that extensively, the actual reading-part, answering every question Éponine dared to ask on the methods, and taking even more time for the question Éponine had asked for divination on. It hadn't felt like a long time, but they had talked about so much, and for a brief moment between stepping out of the back of the kiosk and spotting Montparnasse in front of it, she had felt light with all those answers, almost giddy with relief.

The leaves in the censer had crackled softly, and the girl had smiled. “Silence would traditionally be interpreted as a 'no',” she had said. “Crackling is good. You want it to crackle. Well, at least in your case – obviously, if you'd asked if you'd soon be taken by a fatal illness, crackling wouldn't be that great.”

At the end, when most questions had been answered, Éponine had pulled the carefully counted bills out of the inner pocket of her coat, and the girl had shaken her head with a smile. She'd never stopped smiling, really. She'd also scribbled down a number on a scrap of paper and handed it to Éponine; she had said, “Just in case you'll ever need it,” she had squeezed Éponine's hand and let her go.

Somehow, Éponine thought those things might stay with her for longer than the words that had been said, the advice that she'd been given – certainly longer than the bags of whatever she could grab that she'd managed to snatch in the few seconds that she'd been alone in the back, now heavy in her pocket. Even now, after all that kindness, she couldn't feel bad about having done it, and that, perhaps, was the worst thing she'd learned today.

Montparnasse had been silent, his breath coming in uneven huffs as they walked. He looked at her now, less sharp, more resigned. “They're your family,” he said. “Doesn't that count for something?”

It didn't deserve an answer. What did he know? Montparnasse was held back by nothing, by no one, he came and went as he pleased, going off on his own whenever he needed to.

It didn't deserve an answer, but a biting response seemed appropriate. “Have you seen Gavroche around lately?”

He stood abruptly, and she stopped as well, turning to face him. There was a soft tinge of pink on his cheeks that the cold couldn't be blamed for.

When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Whenever I see him, he's well.”

Éponine almost left, then. They knew it wasn't okay, they both did, and she couldn't stand seeing him like this, forced nonchalance in every line of his expression, pretending he was anything but terrified.

“I'd tell you if he wasn't,” he said. “I wouldn't let anything happen.”

The assumption that Montparnasse could be any better suited to protect someone than Éponine was seemed laughable, but she kept that thought to herself. She would be on her little brother's heels constantly if she didn't know, reluctant as she was to ever say it out loud, that he was better off away from them.

“They asked me to come in for a job tonight, and they want you to be there,” he said. The noise around them hadn't died down, but for Éponine, it sounded as if everyone else who was passing them had decided to whisper. “Will you?”

Two things in her pocket; a linen bag filled with stolen spellthings, a thin scrap of paper with a phone number. She closed her hand around both and nodded, once.

 


	5. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which pretty much every truth comes out at once.

“Enjolras?”

Enjolras started before he recognized Grantaire's voice. He hadn't expected anyone to come here this late; it was already strange for him to be there. The ABC bookshop, unless someone was spending the night in the eyrie, was almost always empty after one in the morning and stayed that way until the first few people trickled in around lunch time. Grantaire was the one to show up at the most unusual times; ever since he'd been given a key, he'd been known to appear out of nowhere when he wasn't really expected. The result of shift work, Enjolras assumed, and possibly a general disposition to live each day without much previous planning.

“I'm here.”

Downstairs, Grantaire laughed softly. “You're even up there when no one else is in here? That's a whole new level of recluse.”

Enjolras didn't think so. He'd never considered himself to be reclusive; in his own mind, he barely just passed as an introvert – and that only in the sense of needing a bit of quiet now and then, much rather than feeling drained by constant company. Combeferre knew that, Combeferre who had been putting up with his rare outbursts and talking him through endless tirades ever since they'd met as first-year students. Lately, Grantaire had taken over shouldering some of that weight, but it was such a different friendship that Enjolras sometimes wondered if he should feel bad for his part in it. All the bitterness he fought to keep inside, Grantaire wore on his sleeve, and a lot of things would be a lot easier if Enjolras could tell himself with conviction that he was drawn to Grantaire for that reason only.

“Force of habit, I suppose.” Enjolras edged away from the ladder so Grantaire could climb up. “It's just my usual spot.”

“Hm.” Grantaire pulled himself up and leaned against the wall, his legs stretched out before him. “You on guard? Are we doing sort of a night's watch thing that I've missed?”

Enjolras didn't dignify that with a response. Grantaire sighed.

“Okay, kidding, of course you're working. I don't think I've ever seen you not-work for longer than an hour.” He sought Enjolras' eyes. “It's disconcerting.”

“It's required.” Enjolras reached over to clear the space of papers and notebooks and sit more comfortably next to Grantaire. “I'm not constantly working, I just tend to be doing it whenever I'm here. Selective perception on your side.”

“Why?” Grantaire hadn't mentioned why he was here, Enjolras noticed. “If it's work that can be done anywhere, doing it here is just... I don't know. Either showing off, or really rude.”

“It wouldn't kill me to be known for either.”

Grantaire picked up a spiral notebook; Enjolras didn't stop him. Grantaire always had opinions on his studies, and they were unwelcome half the time, but obtaining his opinion was normally worth the fifty percent chance that it would be useful.

“I find it easier to work away from home.” Enjolras tapped his pen against the paper on his knees in a slow rhythm. Their arms were resting against each other, the softest connection between them, and Enjolras forced himself not to move, pushing down strange contrasting urges. “It's tricking yourself into being disciplined. Get away from where you have access to a bed, wi-fi, and entertainment and getting work done is suddenly the most interesting thing for you to do.”

Grantaire huffed. “You don't need to trick yourself into being disciplined.”

“How can you tell?”

“No one who has to _force_ himself to do things does as many things as you do.” He smiled, crooked. “Take it from someone who knows.”

They didn't know each other well, it was too early for that, and Enjolras doubted he could say of even five people in his life that they knew him well. Still, when they were like this, Enjolras felt as if he understood what Grantaire didn't say, the little things between non-existent lines, and if that only made it easier to know when to divert, well – that was a type of closeness, too.

“Did you just come from a shift?”

Grantaire glanced at him, as if surprised, and nodded. “Three-to-eleven, which sort of turned three-to-twelve-thirty... Here's to the free market, and so forth.”

“It's illegal to overrun like that in shift work.”

“Yeah, I bet it is.” He shrugged. “What about you, who's going to sue you for forcing yourself to do overtime?”

“Combeferre,” Enjolras said without thinking much. “Or Courfeyrac. I think they've both been considering it. The whole thing might already be in the works; I'm not sure.”

“Hm, that sounds unpleasant.” Grantaire blinked tiredly, and Enjolras, helplessly sleepy himself, fought the urge to tuck him into one of the blankets stored in the eyrie. “I'd never want Combeferre as an enemy. Except, maybe, in a weird parallel universe where I could fight him to absorb his powers.” He smiled, resigned. “I'm resentful of everyone's gifts, but I'd probably murder a person for his.”

“Really?” They hadn't talked about this ever since their very first real conversation. Enjolras himself, of course, tried to avoid the topic, and Grantaire made it easy – he didn't seem keen on discussing it, either. They shared an understanding, and that was enough. “Of all known gifts, that's your favourite?”

“Of course it is, why wouldn't it be?” Grantaire made a wide gesture with one arm, but it was stoppered slightly by how tired he was. “It's the coolest thing ever. Name one kid that doesn't want to understand the thoughts of animals.”

Combeferre hadn't wanted to, Enjolras knew. Until he had mastered it, his gift had been more of a curse, the burden of a nine-year-old boy who'd broken into tears during a school trip to the zoo for seemingly no reason, who'd stood with ridiculous claims of telepathy even before his teachers.

“Maybe you do have a gift,” Enjolras said, unsure where that particular idea came from. He never took much time to be like this, to let his thoughts run far away from reason and just be fantasies. It was easier around Grantaire. “Maybe it's something very mundane and you've never noticed.”

“Oh.” Grantaire grinned. “Now there's a theory. Walk me through this; I would have a different gift from my father how?”

“Magic doesn't always have to work by those rules. Unexpected gifts have always shown up in families, it's just not talked about a lot. There might have been someone with a different gift a few branches back in your family tree and it only resurfaced now—”

“Like an atavism?”

Enjolras' lips tightened. “Yes, exactly.”

“You could have one, too, by that logic.” Grantaire smiled, warmly this time. “What would your mundane gift be, I wonder? Any hidden talents?”

The conversation instantly felt wrong, having turned to Enjolras. Talking about this was a betrayal, something that burrowed into the fragile trust between them and ate away at it until it was too frail to hold up. “I have a very accurate sense of time,” he said. “As good as a stopwatch.”

“Nice. You could build a whole superpower around that.”

“It's arguable that just because something doesn't have much of a purpose doesn't mean it's not magic. A lot of gifts aren't helpful, that doesn't take away from them being gifts.”

“Only you would say that.” Grantaire shook his head, stunned. “Overthrow the magical bourgeoisie! End the discrimination of useless gifts! It's a revolution waiting to be started.”

“I think you could use that as an argument in favour of working to establish magic as a scientific truth,” Enjolras said. “It's less likely to be seen as a threat when we look at how rare gifts are that can do actual damage. Courfeyrac has the firepower of your average matchstick; Bossuet can see dead people and _just_ see them, not even interact; Marius' gift can only affect inanimate things; the worst thing Combeferre could use his magic for is to inform you of your cat's low opinion of you—”

“That might do irreversible damage.”

“—Witches, I grant you, are a literal force of nature, but their power is limited, much as Jehan loves to convince people otherwise.” Sometimes, when he talked about magic, Enjolras fell to pretending he himself didn't exist. There was no other way of saying these things and meaning them. “An overwhelming number of all wounds in history have been inflicted without magic. The world only has to understand that there's no reason to be afraid.”

Grantaire's eyes were on him, heavy with scrutiny. Enjolras had no trouble holding anyone's gaze, but Grantaire was always inquisitive, and being looked at by him felt like being laid out to be read.

“You know,” Grantaire said, “what I least understand about you is how you could possibly be selfless to the point that you're enthusiastic about a world where you and I would be twice as much the odd ones out as we already are. Neither here nor there.”

“No, I don't think we would be,” Enjolras said. “Maybe, with a little more transparency, more people in the same situation could find one another. With things as they are now, of course everything feels alienating, because everyone thinks they're the only one in that situation, although they really aren't.”

“Ah, who knows.” Grantaire shifted and pulled in his legs. “Maybe it really is just us.”

“The odds of that seem extremely short, don't you think?”

“The odds were extremely short for both of us to live in Paris and be roughly the same age, too.” He was so close, Enjolras thought, their arms still touching. Enjolras knew how Grantaire looked at him, and he had spent far too much time accepting this, letting himself become comfortable with it, far more comfortable than he deserved. “And, I mean, here we are.” Grantaire smiled when he said it. Enjolras felt one of those smiles away from falling to pieces. “Two freaks of nature.”

“Grantaire,” he said, turning to him, and this really wasn't his lucky day, because Grantaire turned at the same time so that they were only an inch apart, Grantaire's lips slightly parted and his eyes dark with tiredness and warmth. He was lovely like this, smiling carefully and looking sleepy and soft around the edges. Enjolras wanted to close his eyes to the sight, even allowed himself the comfort of doing that for two seconds, shutting everything out, and then he said, into the tiny space between them, “Grantaire, this can't happen.”

Grantaire pulled back slightly, the movement coming with a rush of cool air. Enjolras tried to read his expression and failed. His lips, everything about him that had looked so soft just then, had gone tight, but none of that anger was directed outwards.

“Fuck,” he said, finally, so softly that Enjolras almost missed the expletive. “Fuck, I – I know that. I mean, I'm so aware of it, normally, I _always_ know—”

It took Enjolras a second to retrace his own words. Grantaire _didn't_ know, he could have no idea why this was happening, and it pained Enjolras to think of whatever reasons he might have in mind now.

Grantaire was on the edge of the platform, moving toward the steps, slowly as if not to spook Enjolras. He paused to look up, composure now carefully pulled back over his features. “I'm sorry,” he said. He seemed smaller, somehow, than Enjolras had ever seen him. “It won't happen again, but if you'd be more comfortable with me not showing up here for a while—”

“No,” Enjolras said. _Stop_. All that guilt in Grantaire's expression, and for what? What had he done? “No, God, you don't have to – it doesn't have anything to do with you.”

Grantaire stared. “Okay,” he said slowly, and then, in a strange voice, “Enjolras, are you all right?”

“Yes,” Enjolras said without thinking. He'd spent so much time being angry at himself, but it had never hit him as quickly and sharply as it did now. “I'm fine. Just...” He breathed. “Just no. I'm sorry.”

“Right.” Grantaire was still looking at him, his eyes that were always so clever desperately searching for something to read. He seemed to be coming up empty. Impossibly, he smiled, but it didn't hold any joy. “I'll, uh. See you around?”

Enjolras nodded, not trusting his voice just yet. When Grantaire had disappeared from view, he managed to speak around the lump in his throat. “Good night, R.”

Footsteps paused. “Good night.”

A while later, he heard the soft jingling of the wind chime by the door, and he could finally breathe out. He leaned back against the wall, breathed slowly, and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes until they stopped stinging.

 

For Combeferre personally, a Jehan in distress had always been the most unwelcome sight that could possibly face him the ABC, closely followed by an Enjolras in distress. Enjolras only came in second because that particular sight was rarer, contained as he was, so Combeferre deeply regretted having skipped out on his morning coffee when he found Enjolras in the ABC on Friday afternoon, obviously wearing his “I'm upset, but won't talk about it” expression. Combeferre had been in the game for too long not to know it, although he doubted anyone else would pick up on it – Joly and Cécile didn't, as it seemed, and had engaged Enjolras in a conversation about something that looked like homework, papers strewn on the table between them.

Enjolras talked about things in his own time, or not at all. Combeferre had a feeling that this was a problem of the second variety, and the thought stung, especially since it involved Combeferre having to pretend he had no idea what this was about. He knew that ignoring certain things was what Enjolras preferred him to do, but it wasn't always easy. Grantaire, for instance, and whatever was connecting them, had been putting Combeferre's composure to the test for months now. If things had come to a head between them, Enjolras needed support, and Combeferre hadn't, after all this time, managed to figure out when it was right to offer what he wasn't asked for.

He'd already failed at distracting himself from these thoughts in three different ways when Jehan, in distress, grabbed Combeferre by the sleeve and dragged him away from a conversation with Courfeyrac.

“You're not answering your phone,” he said, coming to a halt when he'd drawn both of them into the small space behind what used to be the counter.

“It was on mute during class, I'm sorry,” Combeferre said carefully, guiding Jehan's hands and clutching fingers away from his sleeves. “What's wrong?”

Jehan, undeterred, went back to holding on to Combeferre's sleeves, looking down on them as he struggled to find words. When he looked up again, the distress was gone, but it had made room for a sullen expression that wasn't an improvement at all. “I think we need to clear out of the ABC.”

Combeferre's day wasn't really shaping up to get any better.

They had done this before – twice, in fact, ever since Enjolras' founding. Moving locations had been tiring, inconvenient, and bothersome, and in both cases, it had also been necessary.

The concept they had, renting out a tiny venue with a proprietor who didn't care what happened to it as long as they got their rent, worked, but only under certain conditions. Everyone who contributed to the rent or had someone contributing to the rent who vouched for them received a key, and that part had slightly kicked them off course two times. It had meant gathering up everything they kept in the shop within a day, it had meant fighting with the landlord over suddenly breaking off the contract, it had meant hours of spellwork on the location in order to keep seeking and suspicious eyes off it, and it had been, both times, overall unpleasant. The ABC bookshop had been their venue for over a year now, and Combeferre had always hoped and prayed, silently, that they were never going to have to give it up.

Jehan explained patiently, once he had taken a few minutes to breathe. The steady stream of information wasn't pleasant to take in, but made easier by asking questions sometimes, interrupting the laying out of whatever threat was now looming over them.

“An eavesdropping spell?” Combeferre might have been reproachful if circumstances were different, but like this, he could only smile and wonder. “What did you use?”

Jehan dug around in his bag for a moment, then slipped a large, white conch shell into Combeferre's hand. “ _and maggie discovered a shell that sang_ ,” he said quietly, brushing his fingers over the hard exterior. “Very literal.” He blushed, bashful of what he had to consider a lack of finesse. “I suppose I wanted to be safe.”

Combeferre turned the shell in his hand. It was beautiful, just about as large as the palm of his hand – Bolinus brandaris, if he wasn't mistaken. Native to the Mediterranean Sea. “And it's working?”

“It's two of them, bound with the same leaf. I – I slipped him the other one, it's broken up.” Jehan winced at the memory. “It didn't take kindly to that, but I can hear everything he's hearing.”

The things he was hearing were scraps of information, tattered and fragmentary. There was only so much you could gather without listening around the clock, and Jehan, resourceful as he was, was no match for the NSA just yet. It was still enough, of course, enough for them to make out what sounded like most of their greatest concerns about the shop rolled into one, like the confirmation of year-old rumours. It was enough for them to know that they couldn't stay.

At the end, Jehan fell silent, watching Combeferre and waiting for a verdict. Meanwhile, Combeferre was looking at Enjolras, who had now taken Combeferre's earlier place next to Courfeyrac and seemed to be discussing budget issues. It was hard to say whether it'd be a relief or another burden for him to be told that at least the budget wasn't likely to matter for some time to come – only Enjolras' posture gave away that he wasn't all right, the tense line of his shoulders, the way he tried just a little too hard to be his normal self.

Combeferre pressed Jehan's hand. None of them, it seemed, was going to have a particularly great day.

 

After having spent months trying to get Marius to go out more, Courfeyrac had, at first, considered it one of his greatest triumphs to manage to integrate him into the ABC. It had worked on so many levels: Marius had wanted to be surrounded by magic, and now he was. Marius had _needed_ to find a place where he was reassured that he didn't always have to carry his own weight, and he had been on a pretty steady track there at least. In short; the ABC couldn't have been shut down at a less opportune time, because the very weekend that they'd cleaned it out completely, Marius decided to retreat to his room (previously Courfeyrac's dressing room – he could do without it), start working, and only come out to get more tea.

Courfeyrac seized the opportunity to intercept on Marius' third tea break on Sunday.

“Hey there,” he said from the couch, twisting around to see Marius fill the kettle. “How are the words?”

Marius turned around and blinked slowly. He looked as much as a zombie as someone as pretty as him could. “They are,” he said, and Courfeyrac was sure for a moment that he wasn't going to finish that sentence as he turned again and looked for a new mug in the cupboard, “many.”

This was hopeless. “Oh, could you make me some, too?” Courfeyrac was a coffee person, he'd never understood the appeal of tea. God, the lengths he went to. “It's four in the afternoon. The right time to have tea, I think? Together?”

“Sure.” Marius slid another mug off the shelf without looking; it drifted slowly down to the counter and landed there, soft as a feather. “Were you working on something?”

“Huh?” It had taken him about five seconds to forget about the book in his lap. “Oh, this – civil law. Long-winded, unnecessarily complicated, boring.” He pulled in his legs, making room on the couch. “Sit with me?”

Marius did, slumping on the couch next to him. The blanket, folded over one armrest, lifted up with a soft whooshing sound and draped itself over Marius' shoulders, and he pulled it more tightly around himself. “Don't say it,” he murmured, glancing at Courfeyrac. “I've been entrenching myself. I'm sorry, I know you don't like that.”

“What? No, no.” Marius was always so aware of everything; Courfeyrac forgot to do him justice sometimes. “I mean, yes, but just because I don't like it doesn't mean I have the right to push you out of your comfort zone. You can be as much of a hermit crab as you please, I'd just like to know you're okay.”

“Me?” Marius shook his head, wide-eyed. “ _I'm_ not the one to worry about, I'm doing fine. Isn't – wasn't it obvious?” He looked genuinely appalled at Courfeyrac's lack of reaction. “How are you so relaxed?” Then, horrified, “Oh God, has this happened so many times before that you don't even mind anymore?”

Ah. “You're worried about the ABC?”

“I'm worried about Combeferre,” Marius said, helpless. “I keep thinking – I mean, is it right for all of us to be scattered like this? For him to be alone right now?”

“Ts, 'alone'. I'll tell Enjolras you said that,” Courfeyrac said. At Marius' terrified look, he sighed. “Hey, there's no need to worry. He's out of his home, the ABC is a dead end for anyone trying to find him, he's protected.” He grinned. “By Jehan's spells _and_ by Enjolras. Honestly, whoever tries to go up against Combeferre and Enjolras at once has a death wish.”

“Really?” The kettle shut itself off, and Marius looked over, slowly lifting an arm to keep the jug straight as it hovered over to them. Marius had the longest showing-off phase that Courfeyrac had ever seen in a gifted person, but it was so terribly endearing that there was no way of begrudging him. “Enjolras doesn't seem the type.”

“Ah, you just haven't known him long enough.”

“But –” A tiny frown, and Marius finally grabbed the kettle and poured them both hot water. “He doesn't even...”

“Come on, Marius.” Courfeyrac nudged him with a toe. “Like it's impossible to kick ass without magic. Would you say you're up for wrestling Bahorel in all his non-gifted harmlessness?”

“That's not what I meant.” He looked unhappy. “It's just strange, sitting and waiting like this; the police uninvolved...”

“We can't,” Courfeyrac said softly. “What would we tell them? 'Our telepathic friend is in danger of being abducted by a gang connected to a magical human trafficking ring and we heard it all through an enchanted seashell'?”

Marius was still frowning at his tea. “It seems really unsafe to me,” he said. “Still have to get used to your way of dealing with problems, I suppose.”

Courfeyrac watched him, desperately keeping himself from doing something that would come across as patronising, like softly patting him on the head. That impulse was always strong around Marius. He didn't want to be doted on, Courfeyrac was aware of that, and living with Marius had meant seeing and understanding how quickly he absorbed knowledge, how well he adjusted when given a little time, how determined he was. Burying himself in work was only an option for Marius because he'd refused to live in Courfeyrac's flat without paying what he could for it, never mind that the spare room he slept in was shoebox-sized and was far fuller of Courfeyrac's clothes than it was of Marius' belongings.

It was hard to imagine the kind of person that Marius didn't invite gentleness from, although clearly, infuriatingly, they existed. Thinking about it made Courfeyrac wonder if all that caution, all that need to find as much independence as possible in a deeply uncomfortable situation, was just strength, or something else as well.

“Marius?” He nudged him again, smiling this time. “Is that it, really? That's all that's wrong?”

Marius nipped at his tea, considering, and that was answer enough. It hadn't been a difficult question. “I want it to be,” he said. His look at Courfeyrac was quick, but pleading. “Let's let it be.”

 

“Hey, Sorcerer's Apprentice.” Bahorel shook his shoulder gently, and Jehan sat, immovable, still leaned over his book. “You still with us?”

“Thank you,” Jehan said, throwing his hands up. “You're right! Maybe I could use Goethe. Or Lucian.”

“Happy to help,” Bahorel muttered and turned to Feuilly. “It's safe to assume he's lost it; our job here's done.”

“Jehan,” Feuilly said, elbowing Bahorel, “you realise that we're here to help you? At least tell us what we can do, even if it's just keeping you fed.”

“You're here to be masters of poetry.” Jehan tossed a heavy volume at Feuilly, who buckled under the unexpected weight for a second. “Look for something that invokes hiding, anything that talks about not being able to see something; go.”

Bahorel crouched down to sit on the floor across from Jehan, taking in the assortment of ingredients and books that were scattered around him. “Listen,” he said, “either I can't count or you've already cast five spells. Wasn't that perfectly sufficient last time?”

“They're all just placeholders,” Jehan said. This close, Bahorel could see the sheen of sweat on his brow, catching the flickering light of the candles. “It's different trying to protect a place from just anyone, and warding off actual malicious intent. And it's different doing it on your own.”

Feuilly, looking over Jehan's shoulder, pulled a face. “I'm sorry, Jehan. I know we're no proper substitute for a witch, but we're still here to make it easier. You should take a break.”

Jehan didn't react, and Bahorel shared a look with Feuilly. The only other witch in the ABC was a first-year student that had decided to go home to her family until everything was cleared up the second she'd heard the news. That was a reasonable choice, Bahorel supposed, but it did leave Jehan in a bad position, and there wasn't exactly a backup-witch to help him with protection spells. Bahorel and Feuilly had been posted more or less as support, but Bahorel himself was at a loss as to how they were supposed to be useful.

“What about outside help, anyway?” Bahorel asked. He dug around in his bag, there had to be a cereal bar or something in there somewhere. “Didn't you have a coven at some point?”

“Oh, they kicked me out,” Jehan said, absent-minded. “That aside, I don't think involving more people in this is an option. Bad enough that this whole thing already extends to all of the ABC.”

“What about established spells?” Feuilly offered. “There has to be some protection spell that applies at least vaguely to this kind of situation.”

“There probably is,” Jehan said, “just as there's probably a spell for _most_ situations, but not in any book I've ever looked into. My parents might have one back home, but I'd have to be there, and Paris doesn't exactly offer a fantastic repertoire of magical libraries.” He paused, thinking for a moment. Then he sighed. “At least not any that would be accessible for us right now.”

Feuilly frowned and looked ready to take issue with that before he stopped himself. “Oh,” he said quietly. “We can't ask him for help without risking getting him in danger as well.”

“I'm going to fill in the gaps in this conversation you aren't having and guess that you're talking about M's library,” Bahorel said and groaned at Feuilly's confirming nod. “Come on. If you think he might have the answer, why are we here? I don't have all that much first-hand experience with gangsters, but last I checked, they didn't primarily target elderly librarians.”

“They weren't targeting telepaths for abduction, either,” Feuilly said.

“'Course they were, because that makes sense,” Bahorel argued. “Instrumentalising a mind reader is every gangster's wet dream. An old guy who owns a lot of books? Not so much.”

“I keep wondering how it's possible that all this is happening because of criminals being misinformed,” Feuilly said, and Bahorel accepted reluctantly that his – perfectly valid – argument wasn't going to be considered further. “Combeferre wouldn't be much good to them unless they're trying to get a read on another gang's literal guard dogs.”

“He _is_ a telepath,” Jehan said. “It's the word that's misleading. Although, yes, they're clearly not that brilliant at research either.”

“So you're completely sure it's him they're after?”

Jehan held up the shell that he was still pressing to his ear intermittently, waiting for any developments. That was another thing no one could help him with: the spell was done with his magic, and bound to him. Bahorel had held the shell up to his ear earlier and heard nothing but the same familiar rushing sound that had made him believe in old folk tales as a kid.

“I _heard_ them,” Jehan said. “Tall, dark-haired, male, can read minds, regularly at the ABC – that's the information they're working with. Tell me who else that might mean and I'll get to wrapping them up in protection spells as well, but I think it's narrowed down to one.”

His impatient tone carried an unspoken command for everyone to go back to their work. Bahorel had finally been successful in his search and handed Jehan a still-wrapped candy bar. Jehan shook his head; Bahorel kept holding it out until, without looking, Jehan reached for it and unwrapped it. Satisfied with that, Bahorel walked around him to sit with Feuilly who was still leafing through the massive poetry volume he was balancing on his knees.

“Anything?”

“Not really.” Feuilly sighed. “I feel wrong for the job; this kind of thing normally just comes to Jehan.”

“I'm not feeling very inspired,” Jehan said flatly, his back to them. It was impossible for him to sound flippant, so it just came out resigned. Between the darkened front windows of the ABC, the few flickering candles around Jehan's circle, and the cool light of the torch Feuilly had brought, the abandoned shop was incredibly depressing. Bahorel had been consistently fighting the urge to either switch on the main lights and decorate the place with confetti or just get up and leave ever since they'd gotten here.

Feuilly, next to him, closed the book, one finger tucked between the pages so he wouldn't lose his place. “Jehan, did Marius ever come talk to you?”

“Hm? Marius; no, I haven't talked to him in weeks.”

Feuilly glanced at Bahorel, then back at the book, but he said nothing.

“Did you know you had a thinking face?” Bahorel wanted to be annoyed by it, but it never worked. “You're in Deep Thought, trademark. It's pissing me off.”

“I'm trying to put something together,” Feuilly said, but then shook his head in frustration. “Nevermind. You got any more of those chocolate bars?”

They stayed for another hour, and Jehan attempted two more spells, but making them up on the spot required experimentation, normally, that they didn't have time for now, and eventually, they left because Jehan had given up rather than because he had finally succeeded. Bahorel thought that his magical abilities might be less to blame for this, and more his physical constitution – Jehan was dead on his feet, running on Mars-bars and coffee, and he needed sleep, proper vitamins, and carbohydrates. They walked him home together, and, on their way, were joined by his familiar. Jehan gathered her up in his arms and carried her, holding her close to his chest, like a child would hold a stuffed animal to ward off nightmares.

“This has to be a punishment for something,” Feuilly said quietly, only for Bahorel's ears. “Christ, just look at him.”

Bahorel nodded. He'd never seen Jehan yield to anything for as long as they'd known each other, but the circumstances of that had never been so dramatic before. It was unnerving. “So, Jehan,” he said, catching up to him, “what's it going to take for us to get you to sleep? Call in sick for you at work tomorrow? Knock you out? We'll do it.”

Jehan huffed. It was hard to discern, but Bahorel had a feeling that his fox was glaring. “I'll be listening,” he said. “They might be planning something for tonight, I can't miss that.”

“Wouldn't you have already heard of it if they were planning something? What's going on on the other side of that thing?”

“Mostly silence. Or – not really silence, just a lot of other voices, I think the person I left it with is on his own, surrounded by others most of the time. He doesn't talk a lot.”

“Then I think you can relax for the night,” Feuilly said carefully. “You've really done enough.”

“I've been thinking of going to Enjolras', actually,” Jehan said. His fox protested, wriggling in his arms until he let her go. “It feels wrong to be neither there nor at the shop.”

“How about this,” Feuilly said, “ _we_ go to Enjolras' place, and you go to bed. I don't think anyone's attacking Combeferre tonight, but he and Enjolras won't be alone in case anything happens, and you can rest easy.”

“Hey, it's just for one night.” Bahorel poked him in the ribs. He left unsaid that a trip across the city to Enjolras' overturned his whole plan for the night; after all, spontaneous changes were what made life interesting. “You're free to be self-neglecting as ever tomorrow, but we've got it for tonight, witch.”

Jehan stopped walking. It was dark already, but Bahorel could see his eyes darting back and forth between both of them, scrutinizing.

“Jehan,” Bahorel said, warning, “are you seriously considering right now whether or not we're suited enough to look after someone in your stead when you're overtired and half-dead? Because I take offence at that.”

Quiet, Jehan started walking again. “I'm not sure I'm going to be able to sleep,” he said, “even if I try.”

“No, you are,” Feuilly said, and Bahorel grabbed his arm, instantly recognising that tone of voice.

“Fuck, you had a – did you have one of your things?”

Feuilly smiled. “Maybe.”

“That's awesome. Can you say it like—”

As if this was all a massive inconvenience, Feuilly sighed. “Jehan, you will be able to sleep tonight.” A pause for dramatic effect. “It is known.”

“Yes!” Bahorel slung an arm around Feuilly's shoulders, grinning. They had figured out early in their friendship how to make Feuilly's occasional visions entertaining instead of creepy – a lot of things had become easier since then. “Man, you just made my night.”

“Well, I try,” Feuilly said, but his eyes drifted back to Jehan.

Beside both of them, he was still more scuffling than walking, but for the first time tonight, he smiled.

 

Combeferre could move as comfortably in Enjolras' apartment as he could in his own home – he had spent almost as much time here, accidentally staying over when they'd talked until way past midnight, intentionally staying over when they'd still been studying together and had finals coming up. Sometimes, it had been exactly what they'd needed, exhilarating and fulfilling, and sometimes, it had been terrible, the two of them somehow keeping the other afloat, but it had never been like this.

Enjolras kept himself busy, and it wasn't hard, now that they'd been left with a mass of things to work through concerning the bookshop. It all had to be done, he was aware of that, and they had decided as a group that the shop needed to be left behind in at least some attempt to ensure safety. Despite this, he was reluctant, and it slowed him down. He took a little longer to highlight and comb through each document with every phrase he read, and Combeferre noticed.

“You know,” he said, walking up to look over Enjolras' shoulder, “not to be too inquisitive, but you seem more tense than I am.”

Enjolras only glanced at him, quickly directing his attention back to the contract of tenancy. “This is hardly the time to talk about me.”

“No, I think it is.” Combeferre was calm. “I need to keep my mind off things, too, you know.”

With unnecessary force, Enjolras put his pen down, and flexed his hand. “It's so exhausting,” he muttered, staring down at his fingers. “It's so useless. Yes, I'm tense, because we're waiting for something awful to happen as if we're hopeless to prevent it. We're waiting, and we're doing nothing.”

He wasn't angry, not really. He'd spent a lot of time being angry, and perhaps, he thought, he'd burnt himself out in the last few weeks. What pushed those words out now wasn't anger, it was exhaustion, complete tiredness, because this was it, the thing that never let him go. He'd been someone who came up with solutions and answers all his life; he could assess a situation quickly and realise what needed to be done within moments, and all his life, he had seen the things that needed to happen, and had been unable to do them. It was maddening. Today felt like a comedy of it, a perfect illustration to really drive the point home.

“You can only be this frustrated if you genuinely think there's another way,” Combeferre said. It might have sounded patronising, but Enjolras had always appreciated his patience, no matter what forms it took. “Do you see one?”

“No,” Enjolras said. This, too, he knew. “If you want to talk about literally anything else, I won't mind.”

“All right,” Combeferre said, “so, Grantaire—”

“I don't want us to give up the bookshop.” Enjolras turned in his chair. Combeferre stood leaning against a bookshelf, smiling as he shook his head. “I mean it,” Enjolras pressed. “We've abandoned our venues twice before, we've always retreated, but that wasn't the point of the endeavour in the first place. It wasn't just supposed to be a meeting place, it was supposed to provide shelter. Magic is in no way protected by the law, and by sticking together and informing others, we were taking a stand. Now, instead, we're running.” When Combeferre said nothing, Enjolras touched his arm. “You can't tell me it doesn't frustrate you, too.”

“Of course it does.” Combeferre walked over to sit on the bed, apparently realising that this would be a longer conversation. “Have you considered that perhaps, we're lucky this is happening? There have been two disappearances of gifted people in the last five years that we know of, and they were never looked into in the context that they happened in, because the police obviously wasn't aware of the blatant thing these two people had in common. But us, we're warned. We're prepared. If everything works out and we get to call the police as soon as someone strikes, we won't have to give up the bookshop, because the threat will be eliminated.”

“We couldn't say that for certain.”

“No, no one could. But if the threat wasn't gone, it wouldn't be long until they found us at a different location, and everything would start over. So – we might as well stay. That's another way of taking a stand.”

Enjolras tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling, thinking. He had gone through most of this in his mind before, played everything through any way it might go, and everything seemed less than perfect. “It depends on what the others want,” he said eventually. Then, “I'm being impatient, I know. I'm sorry.”

“No need for apologies.” Just on hearing it, Enjolras could tell what was coming. He should have known it wasn't possible to dodge a topic so simply with Combeferre – it never was. “What's Musichetta saying?”

“She hasn't heard back from Grantaire.” Grantaire had been among the absent two nights ago, when Jehan had made his announcement. Everyone had been informed in some way about what was happening, but Grantaire had been the only one who hadn't reacted to texts or calls. Enjolras knew Grantaire was busy working, and there was technically no need to worry, but he would rather know for certain that everyone from the shop was safe, and by going silent without giving much of a reason, Grantaire didn't contribute to his peace of mind.

“You're worried,” Combeferre noted.

“We're all worried.” Enjolras didn't look at him, now. Combeferre wasn't one to bask in his triumphs, but Enjolras hadn't wanted to discuss this at all, and he couldn't find it in himself to face Combeferre now that they had to do it anyway. “He could have just given a sign of life, that's all we're asking. It's unfair of him to leave us in the dark.”

“True,” Combeferre said, “but have you considered that he doesn't think it's necessary for him to update us, because he's not targeted?” Enjolras opened his mouth, but Combeferre went on. “I mean. Not even in the broadest sense, not even in the way a lot of the others are. He's not gifted, he's not really in...” Combeferre halted for a moment, missing the right word. “The blast zone.”

Unexpectedly, even to himself, Enjolras laughed. “Blast zone? That's the first synonym you could think of?”

“I've actually been thinking about doing some research on how it influences speech patterns and vocabulary to spend a lot of time around children,” Combeferre said, but he was never distracted for very long. “You're unhappy because all of this coincides with the fight the two of you had. I'm sorry, that really is bad luck.”

“We didn't fight.”

“Hear, hear.”

“Combeferre.”

“Listen,” Combeferre said, “I've been waiting for you to approach me with this, but you haven't, and I would accept that you don't want to talk about it if you didn't seem so miserable. You don't need to tell me what happened exactly, but at least let me help, if I can.”

“And you really think it's a good idea to do this now.”

“Again, just trying to keep my mind off the looming threat of abduction.”

Enjolras was quiet for a while, fidgeting with his hands as he tried to figure out what it was that made this so difficult to talk about. For one, of course it was easier not to _think_ about it when he wasn't talking about it, but that wasn't all. There was also shame. And surely, he thought, that could be overcome?

“We could have kissed,” he said. Just moments earlier, it had been the other way around, but now, he had to look at Combeferre, testing his reactions, or this was unbearable. “The other night, in the eyrie. I rejected him.”

Combeferre nodded slowly. “That doesn't require justification.”

“I know.” Enjolras disliked having to reject people, and he didn't dish out brush-offs like it was nothing, but simply as a matter of course, he had some experience with it. It came easier to him when he knew it was just a question of physical attraction – he was reasonably sure no one had ever been heartbroken over him – but that didn't mean it felt good. In Grantaire's case, nothing had been as it usually was, and the usual discomfort had amplified and turned into pain that seemed to be there to stay. “But I wanted to explain; I think I should have. I can't accept what he's offering because he has misconceptions of me that are far too fundamental to ignore, and it would be wrong to let him get any closer to me without clearing them up. Do you agree?”

“Yes,” Combeferre said, looking unhappy to express it so directly. “In his case, yes.”

“But this way, I've given him more misconceptions. I told him it had nothing to do with him, but who actually believes that when they're being rejected? There didn't seem to be a way of doing it that wasn't going to cause pain.”

“That's what it's always like when these things don't work out,” Combeferre said. He was doing his best to be gentle, Enjolras could tell. “He'll need some space to work through it, but you'll be able to go back to being friends. Just give it time.”

Was he going to have to say it out loud? He held Combeferre's gaze, willing him to understand, begging him to pick this up without further embarrassment on Enjolras' part.

“Oh,” Combeferre said, and there it was – Combeferre may not be an actual reader of human minds, but most of the time, Enjolras could trust him to read his. “You don't want to go back to that.”

“It doesn't matter.” Enjolras tried to ignore his own self-pity when he could, but if it seeped through now, at least it wasn't in front of anyone who'd hold it against him. “There's no other way, and I'm not happy, but –” He stopped, suddenly unsure about where he'd been going with this. “It was still the right thing to do. All I wish is that Grantaire hadn't shut himself in like this. If he needs some distance, that's fine, and I understand, but it's not fair to the others.”

Combeferre cleared his throat. “So,” he said, “I realise I'm stating the obvious here, so stop me if I'm being patronising, but... have you considered telling him?”

He'd hoped that question wouldn't come. Enjolras made a vague, noncommittal noise.

“You said there was no other way, but we both know that's not true,” Combeferre insisted. “You know him, you trust him. How come it's still not an option?”

“It's not – it's not _not_ an option,” Enjolras said. That there were people out there, in the world right now, who considered him rhetorically gifted to the point of genius, would never cease to amaze him. “I actually thought about it a lot, but I kept putting it off.” Finding excuses, he reminded himself. Telling himself it was better this way, he was only doing it for Grantaire's good, it had nothing to do with his own fears, his shame, everything he was trying so hard to get rid of.

Combeferre looked thoughtful, but before he could respond, the silence was broken by the trill of his phone. “Oh,” he smiled when he'd slid it out of his pocket. “We're about to have company, that's perfect.”

It didn't seem perfect. Enjolras rested his head on his hands. “How? We're both overtired, and I just talked to you about my non-existent love life for ten minutes while we're waiting for an attempted abduction.”

“Well,” Combeferre had his reasonable face on, and that was never a good sign, “you've been antsy for two days because you want to check on Grantaire, and you just said you were putting off talking to him.” He smiled. “I thought perhaps now might be the right time.”

 

Both windows of Éponine's room were thrown wide open, the light behind them shining down onto the street. From where he was standing, Montparnasse could make out the small silhouette of someone sitting on the left windowsill, legs dangling over the edge, feet tickling the garage roof.

“You know, for someone who owns, like, two things, you're taking a weirdly long time to pack.”

That was Gavroche's voice – not that the odds had been very long for it to be anyone else. Montparnasse had suspected Éponine was going to seek him out, but up until now, he'd never been certain. After all, she had made no attempts to find him before, and it must be far easier for her than for him. Anyone could be found with magic.

“I'm trying to figure out what not to pack, actually.” Éponine, her voice distant. “You're not helping, by the way.”

“Maybe you should not pack at all, and leave more here than you have. _Maybe_ you should leave a goodbye-gift.” Montparnasse watched the shadow in the window shift and turn, outstretching an arm. He was holding something too small to be visible.

“What does that do?” Éponine again, and she sounded distracted, hurried. She was leaving, he realised, and wondered why he was completely unsurprised.

“Let me put it this way,” Gavroche said, “it does _not_ instantly fill a room with nettles when touched by anyone but me. That would be impractical.” A pause. “And dangerous.”

“You hang on to that, or else,” Éponine reprimanded. It sounded wrong, coming from her. When Montparnasse had still seen them together more often, she had never tried to mother Gavroche, not for lack of caring so much as for a lack of any idea how to go about it. What had changed? “We're not here to leave traces.”

“What does it matter? They'll know you're gone anyway, that's kind of the point.” Montparnasse heard him say it and darted away from his hiding spot, sprinting out of view and then back into it as he stepped onto the street, knowing Gavroche would see him there. He did, moments later, obviously thinking himself out of earshot.

“Oh, guess who's coming?”

Éponine, panicked: “Who?”

“Three hints – broody, pretty, not as good at hanging on to his plunder as he thinks he is.”

He heard Gavroche jump into the room and their voices became too quiet to hear for a moment before complete silence fell behind the windows. Montparnasse pulled himself onto the roof and crossed it quickly. When he climbed inside, Gavroche was gone, and Éponine was kneeling next to her mattress, examining him.

“There you are,” he said. He wanted to say so much, but none of it seemed to make its way to his lips. “This is it, then? You're not coming?”

She laughed, a sound that gave him chills. “You have to ask?” She got to her feet slowly, patting dust off her jeans and fixing her gaze on him. “I told you I wasn't going to go today the first time we talked about the job. You have your spell, and that's all you're getting from me. There's no reason for you to be here.”

Would it hurt or help to be honest? “They think if you're not there, you'll be somewhere else trying to get in their way,” he said, settling on the former.

“I see.” Her hands slipped into the pockets of her jacket, and Montparnasse was reminded of how small the sachet had been that she'd given them. Smaller than a fist, it would fit easily into a pocket, and it was capable of rendering someone immovable within seconds. Her eyes, when he met them, were hard. “And you're here to keep me in check.”

“I'm here to talk to you.” He took a step towards her, but she mirrored the movement, stepping into his space. Caught off guard, he stopped. “You're leaving,” he said. She didn't flinch – he hadn't been sure, earlier, if she'd known he would be here, but he'd certainly lost any momentum he'd thought the surprise would give him. Desperation clawed at him, and he pushed down on it, equally desperate not to let it show. “Éponine, you're making the wrong choice.”

“Is that supposed to scare me?” She huffed a laugh again, and it was so spiteful, so terrible, that Montparnasse almost pulled back. “Don't talk to me like I have nothing to hurt you with. You're not superior to me in any way, and you'd do well to remember that if you're planning to go through with that job.”

“What are you going to do?” He meant the question; he didn't know. She had never tried to hurt him before, not once, but it would be easy for her. Technically, that was. “Would you stop me? Would you really?”

“I shouldn't have to,” she hissed. “You have no good reason to do this, you don't need to, nobody forces you. You could get out any time you want to.”

“How could you possibly think that?”

“They're not _your_ family!” She was shaking now, every muscle pulled taught in anger. “I didn't understand it from the beginning, Montparnasse, how in the world anyone could be on their own and free to piss off and go anywhere, and choose this for themselves.”

Montparnasse stood, immovable, unable to look anywhere but her.

For how long had this been happening? She was Éponine, as ever, but everything that was normally seething in some hidden place inside her had been pulled to the surface, and Montparnasse had no idea how he'd allowed that to happen. Was he responsible for it? Was this the problem with them, that he always felt like he was?

“This,” he said, and felt anger sting in his chest as well; oh, he'd gotten unused to that feeling, he barely felt anything these days, “ _this_ is all there is for us.”

Éponine huffed. “And how much time have you spent convincing yourself of that, hm? You're the one who started going to a witch for help, you're the one who told me about Jehan—”

“Jehan can prance around doing good because he's rich, Éponine.” What was the harm in her knowing, now? It almost felt like the better thing to do; after all, it was undeniably cruel to leave someone in false hope. “Because he doesn't have to scratch his spell ingredients from the street like you, because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and because he probably grew up with a magical nanny to tutor him. I've seen the area he lives in; I've been to his place. Did you really think there was some big secret you weren't in on that would suddenly change what you are? His secret is money. Simple as that.”

Her fists, now at her sides, uncurled. She didn't take her eyes off him, they were shiny and round and he was painfully aware of the loathing in them, not entirely new, but more pronounced than ever. She didn't have to say it out loud for him to understand, but she still did, grabbing the knife and twisting it hard.

“If you go now,” she said slowly, “you'll do better never showing your face anywhere near me again.”

That was the only threat she was making, he realised. He had seen her make a grown man double over and scream in pain, once, the air around him bursting in a blast of heat and searing his skin. She could do these things, and she was facing him down, more furious than he'd ever seen her, and she didn't.

How fundamentally different they were.

He wasn't sure what he was waiting for when they stood like this, silent and sizing each other up. For something or someone to interrupt them, maybe, to cut through this situation and offer them both a third option, something other than the two evils he had to choose from. And he was looking for the part of himself that had suggested Éponine go to Jehan, that had pretended to forget his gloves in her room a few weeks ago, when temperatures had fallen below zero for the first time, that had slipped Azelma the painkiller Jehan had given him so she could use it for her bad hand. He was looking, and he came up empty, no matter how many stones he turned.

She didn't move a muscle when he turned away and left, but he felt her eyes on his back, sharp like knives, long after he'd left the house.

 

Enjolras' text interrupted a rare and therefore treasured, if slightly sad, night in, and Grantaire's mood immediately dropped. He'd not exactly been looking forward to spending his Sunday night with doritos and Youtube, but it had been a solid plan, and Enjolras texting him ahead to say he was stopping by, well.

He'd known it was going to happen sooner or later. Anyone else would have accepted the awkward half-friendship that normally ensued after this kind of thing, but Enjolras wasn't the type to leave anything unresolved.

Truly, though, for Grantaire, everything _was_ resolved. He had made peace with adoring Enjolras without encouragement or reciprocity not long after he'd first seen him, and he only had himself to blame for slipping up – there had been no good reason to give in to Enjolras asking him for a chess game that first night, but if there was anything most of his friends could testify to, it was that Grantaire had a stubborn and terrible tendency to ignore what was good for him and pass up on what wasn't.

And it was still about more than that. He had known Enjolras didn't want him before; he knew it now, nothing new. Actually making Enjolras uncomfortable enough for him to come here on a Sunday night, now there was a reason to be angry at himself. Whatever they'd been doing together had been a losing game from the first moment, but he had let it happen anyway, maybe it had been moving too subtly for him to realise, maybe the most selfish part of him hadn't wanted it to end; it didn't matter. He'd allowed for it to go too far.

Resigning himself to his fate, he cleared up the living room and the worst of his own bedroom, in case Enjolras asked for a tour. (Unlikely to the point of being almost impossible, but there was no such thing as being too prepared when you were terrified of something.) It wasn't much to clean, luckily, their flat wasn't large and 'living room' was only a generous term describing a large kitchen that happened to have a couch and TV set. Enjolras was going to look out of place here, in the grimy hallway of their apartment building, but there was nothing to be done about that now.

He wanted to focus on the things he could control, like what he was going to say, how he was going to make Enjolras understand that it was _fine_ , he wasn't going to push things again, and he didn't need an explanation. Whichever way he'd put it, it would end up being degrading and awful, and even though that was nothing new, he certainly wasn't looking forward to it.

Noises from his front door, and Grantaire came back to reality. Had the door downstairs been open, at this time of night? He hadn't buzzed Enjolras up. “Enjolras?”

He turned from where he was wiping down the kitchen counter and was stopped in his tracks when he'd made it halfway to the doorway. It only took a second, just enough time for something small and soft to hit his neck, to burst open, and to send crumbs of something – dried herbs? – scattering across his skin, every spot they touched burning with heat for a moment before heaviness settled in his muscles. He faltered, stumbling against the wall behind him and slumping on the ground.

It was difficult to see anything from his position now, and he was unable to lift his head, but his eyes were unaffected. Through the fringe of his hair, he could see two figures, vague shapes that didn't quite add up to form real people. Their voices reached him distantly, too muffled for him to understand anything.

He didn't need to. Every muscle he tried to move was useless, had become numb and sore, and he recognised a malicious spell when he saw one. Slowly, the riddles of the past few days began to slot together in his mind to form a coherent picture, and he wondered why he hadn't seen this coming.

 _A mind reader_. The magical underworld of Paris was made up of idiots.

His body was working against him as he tried to raise his head and see who had been misinformed enough to take his street tricks for actual telepathy – and why were they taking so long, anyway; abductions were supposed to go over quickly – their voices were louder now, had been raised during what sounded like an argument.

In an effort born mostly of frustration, he managed to force his head up, the muscles in his neck screaming with tension. He huffed, blowing his hair out of his eyes, and everything became worse, because the two people standing on the doorstep debating over his abduction were interrupted by the noise and stopped spatting at each other, looking down at where he was slouched next to the couch. As their eyes met, the sight of one of them sent a spark of first recognition and then, instant and searing, anger through Grantaire, the adrenaline of it momentarily granting him the strength to open his mouth and speak.

“You asshole,” he snarled, pressing the words through barely-parted lips. “I had to pay for that hot chocolate.”

Lord Byron froze. He stared at Grantaire's crouched and tense body, his eyes wide with the kind of shock that, Grantaire realised, was impossible to fake.

It was a strange idea that he might be as surprised to see Grantaire as the other way round, but certainly not an inconceivable one. Maybe, by some odd twist of fate, the fact that this was the one Jehan had magically wiretapped and that he had run into both Grantaire and Jehan at the same time and been given a hot drink, really was a coincidence.

The man he had come with was massive, and if Grantaire had been weighing his chances before (which he hadn't, really; he was a pessimist by nature and the circumstances weren't exactly in his favour), he would have given up on that now. His next thought, seeing that boulder of a man who could probably bench-press him and who had a gun tucked where he thought it was hidden, was of Enjolras.

He must still be on his way here. Grantaire sent a hurried wish to whoever may be listening that he wouldn't reach the building until all this was over – he somehow had no doubt that Enjolras could easily hold his own against most people, but there might be another spell up these guys' sleeves, not to mention at least one gun, and he'd much rather see himself kidnapped with no witnesses than have anyone else be dragged into this.

A sudden noise tore him back into the moment: Lord Byron, his patent-leather shoes now clicking loudly against the stone of the steps, had torn himself free of the other man's grip and was darting down the stairs, leaving his partner in crime to cuss after him.

“Fuck, Montparnasse, you _child_ ,” he murmured, sensible enough not to start yelling in an apartment building in the middle of the night. Grantaire was briefly struck by the inappropriate realisation that Montparnasse was somehow even more dramatic a nickname than Lord Byron, which was an impressive feat, but that thought ended as the man's eyes fell back to him.

“Looks like it's just you and me.”

If Grantaire had been able to talk, he'd have reassured his opponent that the fact that they were now alone didn't hurt his chances at all, seeing as Montparnasse had clearly been more hindrance than help, and Grantaire couldn't move anyway. Like this, slouched uselessly against a wall with searing pain flaring up whenever he tried to move any muscle, he was easy game, and if he'd been genuinely invested in his own safety and wellbeing, he might have found that frustrating. As it were, he only wanted to get it over with.

 _Come on_ , he wanted to say. _I'm not about to put up a fight. Make it quick_.

He tried not to speculate much on what was about to follow, but it did strike him as ironic that after more than twenty years of being the black sheep of the family for this precise reason, he probably wasn't going to be able to convince a gang of smugglers that he had no magical gift at all. (“Sounds like something a person with a magical gift would say.” He could picture it already; clearly, these weren't the brightest people.) For the moment, the course of his life seemed to have been taken out of his hands, and he hadn't decided yet whether that was terrifying or, in a way, a relief.

The man dragged his feet as he walked, and he knelt down before leaning in to pick Grantaire up. Grantaire, without knowing what part of him it was that hadn't accepted his fate yet, drew his head back and, in the same motion, spat the man in the face, to piss him off or because he really, really didn't want to be thrown over a shoulder and carried; who knew. It didn't make a difference. The man cussed, wiped his sleeve across his face, and leaned forward again, pushing his shoulder under Grantaire's ribs (and he was far too close for comfort, his head digging into Grantaire's side), before he suddenly tore away, pushing Grantaire from him, and was sent spinning backwards, tumbling to the ground as if dragged by an invisible hand.

Logically, Grantaire understood the order it must have happened in, but with his mind struggling to keep up, he was at first sure sure that he'd seen his attacker recoil so violently _before_ he registered Enjolras saying – commanding? – in a clear voice, “Get away from him.”

He was standing in the doorway, his eyes fixed on the man who was currently half-sprawled on the living room floor in a similarly awkward position to Grantaire's own. There were too many questions, suddenly, but all of them – _Why is he listening to him, what just happened, why won't he move again, that guy has a gun, why isn't he using it, how did he do that, why doesn't he seem scared at all_ – amounted to the same realisation, jarring and clear and urging all other thoughts away.

Enjolras, beautiful, bright, magically gifted Enjolras, did the least logical thing and rushed over to Grantaire, crouching down before him. “What did they do,” he said softly, all the hardness from just a few seconds ago wiped from his voice, “what did they use? Can you talk?”

And Grantaire wanted to, he really did, but all that came out was a pathetic little croak when he managed to part his lips. Enjolras reached out, trying to help him up, and Grantaire mustered a soft noise of protest that prompted Enjolras to draw his hands back. “It's all right,” he whispered. “It's okay, no one's going to hurt you.”

Currently, that was the least of Grantaire's worries. Enjolras might be gifted to the point of being terrifying – Grantaire had never seen magic like that before, flowing through words and instantly striking with such a brutal impact – but what was far more pressing was that Hercules had gotten to his feet and stumbled out of the room. Grantaire strained to lift his chin to try and bring Enjolras' attention to it, but Enjolras remained focused on him instead, his searching eyes having found the now undone linen sachet that had been used for the spell.

“This shouldn't last long,” he murmured, inspecting it. “Are you in pain? Can you blink once for yes, twice for no?”

Grantaire went for 'no', if only because he didn't need Enjolras to be fussing over him, he needed Enjolras to use his frankly unreal abilities to stop his attacker from escaping. Apparently, a simple “stop” from Enjolras' lips would suffice, so there was no reason for Enjolras to waste his time like this.

Tentative, he tried to move his jaw, and found that the pain of it had receded minimally. “Go,” he said hoarsely. “Stop him.”

“I'm not leaving you alone,” Enjolras said. His expression twisted. “I'm sorry, Grantaire. We can call the police, there's easily enough ground to report him—”

“He was right here.” Grantaire felt life returning to his strained muscles, every heartbeat loosening up the tension and soothing the pain. “Why didn't you – you could have _told_ him not to leave, you could have just said it. That's what you do, isn't it? You can speak with magic.”

He'd seen it, the terrified expression on his attacker's face, the shock at what his own body had just been forced to do against his will. Grantaire suspected that not a lot of things were horrifying enough for a man like him to consider running away the best call; there was no question as to what had happened to spook him so badly.

“I'm sorry,” Enjolras repeated. He had composed himself, his expression cleared, but as he moved to pull out his phone, Grantaire could see that his hand was trembling. “I'll call Jehan; he might know how to neutralise the spell.”

“No need.” Grantaire pushed himself up slowly, using his arms to press against the wall, until he could drop down on the couch. “It's fading. Worked quickly, went away quickly. I don't think they meant for it to knock me out for long.”

Enjolras drew in a sharp breath. “He could check on you, at least. I'm calling the others up anyway, someone should stay here with you for tonight—”

“Enjolras,” Grantaire said, but it didn't sound as intense as he wanted it to, his tongue still lazy, “it doesn't matter, now that he's gotten away. If he tells the rest, I doubt any of them are ever going to want to come near any place where there's a chance of running into you.” He grimaced. “They're going to drop the job, for better or for worse.”

“We can't know that. They still think you have powers—”

“But I don't,” Grantaire reminded him. He didn't make an effort to keep the bitterness out of his tone. “Nice to know I'm still alone in the world with that, by the way.”

Hurt flashed in Enjolras' eyes for a moment; he blinked and it was gone. Grantaire knew it was a vicious thing to say, but the reality of this was only sinking in: Enjolras was gifted, gifted on a much larger scale than Grantaire had ever seen, and Grantaire had spent almost a year thinking they had something in common. Enjolras had talked with him about this. Enjolras had talked about knowing what it was like, had talked about his own isolation. Those words seemed cruel in retrospect, false with a kind of coldness Grantaire had never expected from Enjolras. The one thing that Grantaire had thought to tie them together, something that had even, at times, helped him keep his head above water when things had gotten bad in the last few months (because he couldn't be all bad, could he, and that a part of him was missing couldn't be all bad either, not when Enjolras was missing it too and he was _beautiful_ ), was a lie.

“The others have to know what happened,” Enjolras said. “If you'd rather not be around me, I understand, but I need to tell them, and they'll insist on you not being on your own.”

Grantaire ran a hand through his hair. _The others_. Now that he could think it over, everything that had just happened made less and less sense. Hadn't Jehan been listening in to make sure they knew when the attack was going to happen? How had the rumour of Grantaire having genuine telepathic abilities ever made it into circles that knew what real magic looked like, and how hadn't they been able to tell it apart? Had he been so preoccupied with pointless pursuits that he'd missed the fact that he'd been tailed? Because clearly, those guys had known what they were looking for. He somehow doubted they'd known his name, but they seemed to have known everything else, perhaps even that Grantaire could handle himself in a fight, hence the attack from a distance using the spell.

“Would you at least stay with Musichetta?” Enjolras was watching him carefully. “For them, if not for me.”

It was impossible to express anything about his spike of anger when he heard Enjolras' defeated tone. “Yeah.” He rubbed the side of his neck; it hardly hurt to move now. “Sure. Should I – do you want me to talk to anyone? Should I call Combeferre?”

“I will.” Enjolras kept his distance, still. Grantaire must have scared him by flinching away earlier. “I've got it for tonight, you're... you must be tired.”

“And I'm sure you're feeling at the top of your game.”

“I'm wasn't hit by a malicious spell and almost abducted today,” Enjolras replied. He was typing away on his phone, but looking at Grantaire, one of those Enjolras-things that would be strange for anyone else to do. “If that's okay, I'd like to come with you to Chetta's. Just for the way. You can tell me everything we need the others to know, and I'll leave you alone the second she lets you inside.”

There were few things Grantaire could think of that he wanted less than to be the reason for Enjolras sounding so careful, almost timid. Did he have a right to be angry? He still was, but he was also tired, and the faint ache in his muscles hadn't gone away completely, so there was little else to say but yes. “Just let me get some things,” he muttered, and dragged himself to his room to pack clothes for the next day and a toothbrush.

He told Enjolras what he could, on their way, and was almost glad that seemed to be everything Enjolras wanted from him. Talking about anything else would have been strange, and although Grantaire was still holding on to his anger from earlier and had a whole list of questions for Enjolras, he wasn't keen on discussing either of those things. Musichetta, sleepy and unhappy, gave him a long hug before she boxed him in the chest and then manoeuvred him over to the couch, where she'd already spread out sheets and additional pillows. Later, when he was in the bathroom, he heard the two of them talk in the hallway, Enjolras' earlier promise of leaving as soon as possible already forgotten.

“We should all try to meet up somewhere tomorrow,” Enjolras said when he saw Grantaire stepping back out into the hallway. “There's lots to talk about.”

Grantaire nodded and blinked, padding back towards the living room. “Tomorrow,” he muttered, and found himself curled up on the couch a moment later, already half drifted off to sleep. His last coherent thought before he was gone completely was that in their whole discussion of tonight's events, he had neglected to thank Enjolras.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely routeguano illustrated Jehan carrying Mae absolutely beautifully [here](http://routeguano.tumblr.com/post/162547322206/jehan-and-mae-from-that-absolutely-stunning)!!  
> 


	6. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Montparnasse makes Choices, a book is stolen, and a spell is cast.

_January_

 

Long before she'd started thinking about finding Gavroche in order to stay with him, Éponine had known that Gavroche was, for the most part, clever and popular enough never not to have some sort of roof over his head. He had friends all over the city, not, Éponine was afraid, out of sociability, but out of necessity. Azelma and her hadn't had to establish that kind of safety net for themselves, they had grown up differently – in a completely different time, it seemed now.

Things had been better, once.

At a camp site just off city limits, Gavroche knew a caretaker who let them stay overnight in his hut. The space was cramped, it was meant to be an office and storage room at once, certainly not an accommodation for two people, but they could use the camp site facilities without arousing any suspicion at all, and Éponine told herself that overall, it wasn't bad. Neither of them spent much time in the hut as it was – during the day, they went back into the city, sometimes staying together, sometimes each on their own errands and excursions, returning some time during the night, if only just to make sure the other had found their way back as well.

She had been back to the bookshop, too. Twice, in fact. The warmth she had always imagined to be emanating from it, the soft swell of magic that could be felt even from the outside, both were gone. Some protection spells had been cast, not particularly effective ones, as far as she could tell, but then, what did she know about magic? This, whatever it was she could feel echoing around the now cold door of the bookshop, didn't feel like anything she could do. It felt bright in its own way, bright and steady, like a weak, but constant light. Was that really something a person could buy?

The question hadn't let her go, and she'd spent most of the last two weeks searching, asking, watching. It kept her mind off other things, and for the first time, she was feeling as if she was actually getting somewhere and moving forward – until she hit (inevitably, as it seemed) another wall.

When she came in that night, still frustrated from a day full of dead ends as far as her research went, Gavroche was up and inspecting his collected trinkets of the day under the desk lamp that he'd dragged over to his mattress. “Finally,” he said, turning the lamp to shine right at her. “Staying out late's dangerous, you know.”

She ignored the quip, pulling off her woollen hat and tossing it a little more aggressively than necessary onto her pillow. “Staying up at night isn't healthy.”

“Who do you think I was waiting up for? Not my fault that you took your time.” He turned the light back so that she could see his grin. “So, guess who I ran into today.”

“Whoever it is can wait until tomorrow.”

“That's right! Your ex-husband, trying his luck at Barbès market. He looked like a lost dog.”

Éponine closed her eyes, as if that would somehow keep out the thoughts she'd been trying to avoid. No point. She opened them. "Any luck at Barbès?"

“Yeah.” Gavroche pointed to the desk that Éponine had crammed her mattress behind. She inspected the improvised bag made up of a handkerchief tied together at the corners – it held figs and dried dates, cheap at Barbès and probably free when Gavroche acquired them. Suddenly craving something sweet, she picked the pits out of a date, maybe to be used later, and tore a piece off with her teeth.

“He asked about you.” Gavroche held out his hand, letting Éponine toss him a date. “Obviously, as your divorce lawyer, it falls on me to be the medium of all communication between you two, and I told him you've no interest in reconciliation.”

Éponine huffed.

“However,” he held up a finger, “because of his slumped shoulders and puppy eyes—”

“Not the words I'd use to describe him—”

“—and because unlike you, I've actually heard the story of how he ran away from his last job like a five-year-old and is consequently no longer welcome with the others, when he asked me to tell you that he'd be waiting at les Halles tomorrow morning, I said I'd let you know. Which I now have. Make of that what you will.”

She knew what to make of it, and didn't really want to discuss it. Reaching over to the wall, she unplugged the desk lamp and the room fell dark instantly. Gavroche sighed.

“Couldn't you have parted on amicable terms?”

“Gavroche,” she muttered into the darkness, “you know him too well to fall for that.”

“Obviously,” he replied, sounding unconcerned. “Doesn't mean I can't talk to him. Plus, he bought me a panino, so I liked him today.”

Outside, it was completely quiet. Éponine wasn't used to the silence at night, having lived in a crowded neighbourhood before, but no one wanted to go camping in January, and for those few who did, there was nothing that would charm them to come outside and be noisy in the cold of the night.

Éponine thought about everything she'd learned, about how Montparnasse, always a more talented thief than her, might just be the sledgehammer she needed to break through the wall she'd hit today. Could that possibly be worth it?

“Did he say where exactly at les Halles?”

Gavroche snorted, but didn't comment on what could easily be interpreted as giving in. “The garden at Passage Mondétour.”

Éponine rolled her eyes for no one to see. Montparnasse was counting on sentimentality for no reason – they'd used to go to that particular spot, picking flowers and twigs when nobody was watching, Montparnasse for fashion, Éponine for spells. There'd be nothing there now, in the middle of winter, and Montparnasse was relying too heavily on her to be swayed by those memories.

She curled up on the mattress, hugging a pillow to her chest. An idea was half-formed when she slipped off, and it grew in her mind as she slept.

When Éponine found him in the morning, sitting on the bannister around the barren flower bed and watching as his breath formed clouds in the crisp air, she didn't share Gavroche's opinion on how Montparnasse looked. It didn't matter how he held himself, it didn't matter how he frowned or kept his eyes lowered, he always looked proud to her, proud and overly cocky in an attempt to intimidate. She'd sometimes thought that Montparnasse could break into tears in front of her and it would do nothing to change her impression; there was just something about him that made her feel sure he'd still be holding on to his arrogance in the grave.

He moved when he saw her, a quickly aborted twitch of his arm before he seemed to remember that they weren't exactly on handshake terms. It wasn't helped by the fact that he didn't move to get down from the bannister, any effort at a friendly approach either suppressed or not even on his mind in the first place.

Éponine stopped a few metres away from him. The small square was mostly empty, and there was no one here who'd care enough to listen in on their exchange, so she might as well keep her distance. “Everything's still the same,” she informed him, one hand closing tightly around the sachet in her pocket. She wasn't sure how well it'd work, now that ingredients were sparse, but she hadn't wanted to come unprepared. “I don't care that you didn't do it.”

If she had caught him off guard with that, he didn't let it show. As he did nothing, she thought, not without bitterness. Everything always seemed to come easily to him, even apathy.

“I know.” Montparnasse didn't meet her eyes, instead looking around the square, his eyes half-closed. She wanted to push him off the bannister. He'd been the one who wanted this, and had the gall to look bored. “I'm just here to ask if you need anything.”

She laughed, a sound like a bark, and stepped closer. “You're sure this is how you want to do this? Honestly? You asked to meet me after I told you not to, I showed up, and you're still going to lie to my face?”

“No.” He shrugged. “Look, I'm not asking you for anything. You wanted me gone, so I was. Just.” He waited, she had no idea what for, and bit down on his lip while he thought. “If there's anything you still need from me, tell me. If only to wipe the slate clean, no forgiveness required.”

A few moments ago, she'd been prepared to leave without another word, but now, something stopped her. She remembered, all of a sudden, something she'd only understood the night she'd run away and then immediately tried to forget again: his expression when they'd argued, how he'd flinched at her words despite being so stoic that he barely showed any emotion even now. _They're not your family_. How everything about him had screamed back _Yes, yes, they are_ , only he hadn't said it out loud.

She breathed slowly. They had always been better at saying what they didn't mean, counting on the other weaving the intended meaning between the words themselves. Part of her was aching to go back to when that had worked so easily, when there'd hardly been an effort to it, when both of them had been sure that they were a wreck, failing to notice that they'd been more intact and whole than ever back then.

She stepped still closer to him and his eyes followed her, nervous for the briefest moment. “Help me with something,” she said. _Forgiveness optional_.

A slight nod, and he pushed himself off the bannister, ending up at eye level with her. “What do you need?” _Anything for that_.

 

Peace, Musichetta thought, had become so rare that it felt all the better when it came by. Things had settled down a little, but their situation now was still a long way from what it had been a month ago. When they'd all – the three of them, that was – finally found themselves together in her living room on what was a night off for all of them, it almost seemed like an unreal luxury.

“Should we call R?” Joly was sitting on the floor, surrounded by stacks of DVDs and PS4 games. “I think he could really do with something other than angsting alone in his room for once.”

Bossuet groaned, and vaguely turned the noise into a sigh when Joly gave him a scandalised look. “I'm sorry. You know I love him, and yes, he definitely needs our sunshine in his life right now, but I beg you, let us be selfish for one night. It's been ages.”

Musichetta reached out from the couch to wind her fingers into Joly's hair, petting him gently. “You can call to check in on him, if you like,” she offered. “I'd rather you let us take your mind off it for tonight, though.” Not that his mind should be on it in the first place, because he'd done nothing wrong. Very much unlike her, who had known months ago that Enjolras and Grantaire would be twisted together by fate in a strange way, and had never bothered to mention it to either of them.

It was a question of self-preservation as much as it was one of discretion: the lives of her friends affected hers directly, so whenever she caught a glimpse of what was to come for her, she'd stumble across this or that little fact that perhaps wasn't entirely meant for her knowledge. They were never intimate details – her gift was too vague for that, left too much room for interpretation – but they were truths, and that was often enough to intrude on someone's privacy. So she didn't let others know what she knew, kept things to herself, considered herself lucky (and, to be honest, pretty talented) whenever something unravelled and her interpretation turned out to be correct, and held up her own personal balance that way. It had worked for the longest time.

“Okay,” Joly said, “I nominate every single tragic historical drama in this pile. If there's anything I've discovered, it's that crying is a more effective method of distraction than laughing.”

“Objection,” Bossuet and Musichetta said at the same time and high-fived across the couch.

“We're not letting you go from worrying to crying and the mere suggestion is an insult.” Bossuet reached over to grab one stack of DVDs. “I say... Mission Cléopâtre or death.”

Musichetta leaned forward and pressed two fingers to his temple, miming a gun. “And you're gone. If I have to look at Depardieu's tax-evading face for one more second of my life, I'm going to combust in some sort of rage collapse and it's all going to be your fault.”

“And Depardieu's,” Joly interjected. “Hey, don't you still have my Scott Pilgrim DVD?”

“Lent it to Feuilly,” Musichetta said and pulled a face. “I mean, it isn't far, someone could go pick it up.”

“Not me,” Bossuet said instantly. “There's a little girl not-living in the staircase of his building, and I think I'm only scared of her because if I wasn't, the sight of her would plunge me straight into depression. You could pay me and I wouldn't go there.”

“But you're our go-to-places-guy,” Joly said, looking unhappy. “That's how this _works_.”

“Always good to know you're appreciated and valued based on the function you fulfil in a relationship. Lucky for us,” Bossuet got up and stretched, “there's still internet piracy. Your laptop, Chetta?”

“Bedroom.”

She laid back on the couch and wove her fingers back into Joly's hair. Sometimes she thought this was more soothing for her than it was for him, but in the end, they both won. That applied to other things as well, she suddenly thought. After all, she was trying to keep her own thoughts off this topic as much as she was her boyfriends'.

It was tricky, though, with Enjolras and Grantaire. She had been the first intersection of both their lives, and that meant something, at least in her world. She didn't carry responsibility – if she started thinking that she did for everyone's future that she caught a glimpse of, she'd lose it in no time – but the feeling was also hard to shake that she was somehow more involved than her other friends. Not that she knew very much: from the first day she'd noticed the connection between them, she had known two things; that they would share a secret, and that Grantaire would serve as a catalyst at one point or another. It was frustrating that she hadn't been able to tell how those two facts would come together to cause for Grantaire to have to sleep on her couch for a week after he'd almost been abducted, in addition to him spending a considerable amount of his free time at a police precinct in search for an unknown perpetrator now.

They weren't telling the whole truth, she knew, when they stuck stubbornly with their version of the story where an attacker the size of a mountain simply fled the house as soon as Enjolras walked in. Just in knowing that, she knew more than the rest of them, and she kept wondering distantly if the betrayal of her friends was worse if she kept everything to herself, or if she shared part of what she knew, at least with her boyfriends.

“I can hear you think,” Joly muttered from where he was leaning against the couch. His voice was lax and soft, so the scalp massage seemed to serve its purpose. “You've been quiet. We notice, you know.”

“True,” said Bossuet as he came back in, balancing her laptop on one arm. “Is it one of those classified psychic things? Because at this point, I say we put up a new rule that allows you to tell us stuff if someone's in mortal danger.”

“No one is, and no one was,” she said and finally pulled herself up to sit properly, helping Bossuet set up the laptop on the couch table. “We're taking a break, because we've earned it. All of us,” she added at incredulous looks from both sides. It wasn't wrong: Joly had been part of the task force that kept Jehan alive as he researched protection spells day and night, as if there was anything to salvage about the ABC, and Bossuet had been looking for possible new venues with the others. Add to that classes and, in Musichetta's case, running a business (now on her own, with Grantaire struggling to keep up even with his factory shifts), and they were all in need of some time to breathe.

Joly and Bossuet exchanged a look.

“As the lady commands,” Bossuet said, shrugging, and went back to finding a stream. “I'm certainly not complaining. Just—” He frowned, looking at Joly.

“Don't think you have to protect us all the time,” Joly finished. “I know I'm not cool like you guys, and Bossuet's magic is practically pointless,” Bossuet kicked his shin lightly, “but I've always been pretty sure that everyone in this room knows what they're in for. We've got you, Chetta.”

Her chest felt warm. “You two are the worst,” she whispered, and Joly laughed and tickled the underside of her foot.

She knew she was lucky, she had a whole anecdote to prove that she was, and she told it to anyone who would listen. She could tell it fondly now, talk about how as a younger girl, she'd been almost haunted by a prophecy that would likely have brought most fourteen-year-olds to their knees and that her aunt had liked to cite at her whenever she'd come to visit – it was something to laugh about now, the fact that for so long in her life, she'd always shuddered to hear those dreaded six words: _You will never find the one_.

 

Gavroche was walking back from the camp site showers early in the morning, with the sun not even up yet, when he saw Montparnasse crouched in what he must have thought was a hidden place by the hut. Because he could, he tiptoed up behind him and tapped his shoulder, frowning innocently when Montparnasse jumped.

“Hello, Montparnasse,” he said, eyes falling to the heavy volume Montparnasse was holding pressed to his chest. “Such a coincidence to run into you here in this near-uninhabitated spot of Paris.”

He was completely serious when he replied, not a hint of irony in his voice. “It's not a coincidence.”

Gavroche gasped. Montparnasse ignored it.

“I just wanted to leave this here.” He held up the book quickly; it looked ancient and precious enough to make it easy to guess where he'd gotten it, but Montparnasse still confirmed it. “No one saw me. Doubt the old man is even going to realise something's missing.”

The old man in question was someone Gavroche knew reasonably well, that was, well enough to know that he'd notice instantly if one of his precious books wasn't in place. He'd have it back soon enough, though, Éponine had promised that.

“The resistance thanks you,” Gavroche said and grabbed the book. “You know neither of us told you we were staying here.”

Montparnasse huffed. “Yes.”

“And Éponine would have your head if she knew you'd been following one of us to find out.”

At that, Montparnasse smiled mirthlessly. “You can assure her it won't be a problem. Anyway, hope that thing helps with whatever you're trying to do.”

He turned to walk away, leaving Gavroche frowning for a moment before he stopped and faced him again. Gavroche watched as he fidgeted with his gloves, slipping his hands out of them.

“Keep these,” he said, holding them out for Gavroche as well.

Unlikely ever to turn something warm down, Gavroche took them, tucking the book under his arm. “You aren't bequeathing these, are you?” he asked. “They better not be fishing you out of the Seine tomorrow morning.”

Montparnasse looked baffled for a moment. “No,” he said then, and shook his head. “Take care, Gavroche.”

He left, quiet and quick as wind. Gavroche stood in front of the hut for a while and watched him leave, trying on the gloves that were big enough to engulf his wrists next to his palms.

Éponine found the book lying next to her pillow when she woke up, and, as if pulled in by a magnetism buried somewhere inside it, didn't let go of it for over an hour, flipping through it, stopping to read, scrunching up her forehead in frustration when she didn't find what she was looking for. Gavroche didn't offer his help – she'd know more about bookish spells than he did, and he had a feeling that she'd be asking him to help with the execution later.

“Explain,” she said when the silence had stretched out for a very long and boring time, “how this thing got here. Did he meet you somewhere?”

“He was here,” Gavroche said. Montparnasse had been right, it didn't make a difference whether she knew or not. Besides, why lie? They were unlikely to see him again. “Oh. Almost forgot.” He pulled the gloves out of his hoodie pocket and tossed them at her. “Too big for me, sadly. Can't really use my fingers when I have them on. Just to let you know, though, they're mine as soon as I'm grown into them.”

She picked one up, bewildered. “You... didn't nick these, did you.” It wasn't a question; Gavroche was surprised she commented on it at all.

“Between you, me and the desk,” Gavroche said, lightly kicking a leg of the desk he was sitting next to, “I don't think he's coming back.”

He couldn't say what kind of reaction he'd expected, and he hadn't given it a lot of thought, but what she did surprised him: no “good riddance,” no “he could have at least said goodbye,” not even a half-fond “that asshole” to express some exasperation. She was quiet for a moment, her expression unreadable, and then she straightened her shoulders, fixed him with a look and pushed her hand against the book, one finger tapping the cover. “I'm going to need your help with this.”

It became a long day. Gavroche had kept away from the rest of the gang lately, avoiding each of them when he ran into them in the streets. The exception had been Montparnasse, but only because word of his failure (slash insubordination, if you were going to glorify it) had reached Gavroche through rumours. Seeking them out didn't prove to be too difficult, but getting close enough to them to get what he wanted certainly was.

Between all of them, they had gotten suspicious of magic, even though they didn't understand it very well. They were all aware that if Gavroche were to saunter up to them and casually pluck a bunch of hair off their heads, it wasn't for a fun prank.

He had to be quick and clever, and lucky for him, he was both. He found Éponine at the bookstore late at night – Claquesous had given him a hard time, being impossible to steal from, and he hadn't been able to make it earlier. At least, even though they had been on Éponine's list, he hadn't had to make the trip to their parents. When he'd still been with them more often then not, just to be sure and just in case he'd ever need it, he had stolen a small lock of hair from each of them, but even then, he hadn't expected it to be useful in the way it was now.

Éponine pulled herself to her feet when she saw him. She had told him she'd spend the day studying the spell and getting together the ingredients that didn't involve other people, but she was still looking more tired than he felt. “Did you get everything?”

“Everything.” He swung his satchel. “Zelma wasn't on the list.”

She nodded, opening his satchel and inspecting the contents. “She doesn't have to forget, she won't remind the others.” She paused. “We'll go back for her,” she said, softer. “She'll come around.”

He couldn't think of anything to say in response, and they were both silent as she unpacked her bag and he prepared the five sachets with everything she'd brought. It was lucky for them that the night was cold, because the street was empty for once, with no one to see and possibly report them. Not that anyone would have much reason to worry; what they were going to do, break into an empty store? The whole street had become a little more lifeless ever since the gatherings in the ex-bookshop had stopped, even Gavroche had noticed. If this was going to bring them back, they were doing the street a favour.

“All right.” Éponine knelt down by the door frame. She traced the threshold with gloved fingers, closing her eyes to feel the dividing line. “Ready?”

Gavroche grinned. “What do you think?” He crouched next to her. Three mortars were lined up along the threshold, along with the sachets arranged in the space between them. He checked the ingredients in each of them as Éponine wrote, clumsily, on the doorstep with chalk. Gavroche sought her eyes, and when she nodded, he struck a match.

 

Seeing Jehan sleep curled up on the floor was a conflicting thing. It was heartbreakingly sweet, for one, enough to make Combeferre smile in spite of himself, and then, it was also infuriating, because the heating here had already been shut off, it was icy outside, and Jehan was protected from the cold by nothing but his layers of clothes and hopefully one or the other spell. There was also the fact that he was here at all, but Combeferre had already had some time to process that. (The time it took for him to walk from his flat to the bookshop, to be exact. It had been _some_ time, but not enough. Outside, he'd seen new spellwork on the threshold, and wondered how much raw energy it must have cost Jehan.)

He knelt down next to Jehan and carefully put a hand to his shoulder. Jehan stirred, eyelids fluttering.

“Jean Prouvaire,” Combeferre whispered, “you are the most unreasonable, stubborn, incorrigible person I have ever called my friend.” He sighed. “And I'm friends with Enjolras.”

Jehan blinked awake, then, and immediately looked as if he was in pain. Only his coat, folded over once to be a little thicker, had served as a mattress, so his bones must be aching. “You weren't supposed to be here,” he murmured, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and as if by command, Mae, who had run ahead all the way here, came out from where she'd been hiding behind Combeferre, eyes twinkling. Jehan frowned. “Traitor.”

“Tell me, Jehan,” Combeferre sat down next to them, crossing his legs and getting comfortable, “what is magic?”

He knew that Jehan was familiar with this tone of voice – they'd had a discussion about it once after Jehan had witnessed him using it in the work place once, that was, teaching primary school children. He'd told Combeferre that up to then, his lecturing voice had always seemed authoritative, which was now effectively undermined by Jehan having to imagine the seven-year-old-self of whoever was receiving said lecture. To his credit, Jehan still played along.

“Energy,” he replied dutifully.

“And what happens when we use it constantly, recklessly and without respite?”

“Similarly to when we exercise without eating or drinking, we become drained, tired, are more prone to illness and may show symptoms such as shivering, vertigo or migraines,” Jehan recited. Combeferre nodded and raised his eyebrows, expectant.

“Combeferre,” Jehan said quietly, “you know why I'm here. I know you understand.”

It was still too early, and they were both too tired, to notice how close they were, closer than usual. Jehan was leaning against Combeferre's side, resting his head on his shoulder. He pressed Combeferre's hand silently.

“You know,” Combeferre said, neither a question nor a certainty.

“About Enjolras, yes.” Jehan moved, putting the slightest bit of space between them again. “They don't know who he is, but that's just about the only advantage we have. If they trace him, it'll be through here, and I don't know how to make the place inaccessible for them. I've – tried, I've spent half the night trying, but one person's magic isn't enough, or maybe it's just _mine_ that isn't enough, I don't know, I just can't do it—”

Jehan kept a lot of things on the inside when he was around others, Combeferre had always known that, and he was particularly good of hiding this part of himself. “Stop.” He moved to kneel before him, seeking his eyes. “It's not up to you to protect him, Jehan. He's excellent at doing that himself, please believe me, and all the rest of us, we're looking after ourselves. We're looking after each other. Don't try to take all of that on at once, Jehan, or you'll get hurt.”

“I don't worry that Enjolras can't protect himself,” Jehan argued, “I worry that he won't. There's a reason no one knows about his gift, and I'm guessing the same reason is responsible for the fact that he let someone get away who had attacked our friend. I understand why, I really do, and I admire him immensely, but the same thing that makes him powerful makes him vulnerable.”

Combeferre considered that. His gift wasn't the only means of protection that Enjolras had – he was actually quite terrifying in a fight, which Combeferre only knew due to very unlucky circumstances. Jehan was still right: being violent in any way was abhorrent to Enjolras, and it took a lot for him to resort to it. His own safety being threatened might not always be enough. “How did you find out?” he asked, in a softer tone. “I only know because he told me.”

Jehan smiled, but he looked sad. For how long had he known? “My family, mainly. I don't know how much you've talked about this to him, but there's this...” He breathed. “I think it's only widespread in the larger magical families, the ones that stay among themselves. We have a lot of scary bedtime stories, and there's a very popular one of a monstrous wizard who could make anyone bend to his will with words. Have you...?”

Combeferre shook his head. There'd been a time where he hadn't understood his parents' decision to raise him without any awareness of his own magic, but a lot had changed since then, and he sometimes wondered if he should be grateful instead. “I've never heard or read of it. Enjolras told me about an ancestor of his once, because he's the only real source that he and his mother have on his gift, and he might have been responsible for their family name, but...”

“It's one of those things, I suppose,” Jehan said, “half myth, half history, and no one can tell the two apart anymore. I never thought too much about it, but when I met Enjolras... Magic is a tangible thing to me, you know? I always thought I could feel it when I was alone with him, and then I tried to convince myself that I was imagining it and it was none of my business anyway, but with everything that's happened lately, it just – added up.”

“You should have told me you were suspecting it,” Combeferre said, gently chiding. The things that could have been made easier if they had talked about this...

“Enjolras clearly doesn't want anyone to know,” Jehan said, helpless. “And it's not hard to guess why. I thought I was helping to keep him safe by not saying anything, but—” He stopped himself, face twisting into a bitter grimace. “It doesn't matter now. I've failed.”

Everything started to make a little more sense, now. Jehan wasn't only trying to protect the bookshop so they could stay in it, he was aware of the threat that was facing Enjolras now that someone who hunted for people with rare gifts had witnessed him using his. He had, completely overexerted, slept through the attack on Grantaire, and Combeferre was angry at himself for only realising now that all this – the constant insistence that he could still save the shop, the exhaustion and ungodly hours he kept, were a reaction of self-flagellation as much as they were one of desperation.

“I remember when Feuilly and Bahorel came over that night,” Combeferre said. He smiled. “They were an inch away from literally strapping you to a bed to make you go to sleep, did you know?”

Jehan hummed. Combeferre imagined they hadn't made much of a secret of their disapproval.

“I don't think I'm as lenient as they were,” Combeferre mused. “I think it's fair to take more radical measures if you won't see reason.”

Jehan laughed softly. “Fair?”

“Yes, absolutely. For instance right now – I'm assuming you'll refuse to go home and promise not to come back if I ask you politely, so instead, I might have to carry you home and guard the door to keep you from escaping again.”

This time, Jehan's smile stayed, weak as it was.

“Everyone's safety isn't your responsibility,” Combeferre told him quietly. “Let the rest of us shoulder some of that weight, Jehan.”

Jehan gave him an odd and rare look, something between fond and exasperated. “You don't understand as much as you think,” he said, shaking his head. “This is why I had to try so hard; you never listen to your own advice. Did you hear yourself just now? You take care of everyone and everything, always, and you're the one who won't share the load. I was trying to make sure you didn't have to protect yourself as well as everyone else, this time.” Combeferre's distress must have shown on his face, because Jehan shook his head again, cutting off any possible response. “Someone has to.”

Combeferre remained quiet, letting the ache those words had left ebb away. It was exceedingly rare for him not to know what to say, so when it happened, it tended to send him spinning into a small and well-contained panic, but with Jehan, silence was never uncomfortable. The world would be a softer place, he thought, if everyone understood silence the way Jehan did: not as a lack of response, but as everything one needed to know poured into the quiet.

There was some noise from the street outside, the level of it rising with the sun in January. What little light fell through the cracks where the windows weren't masked off showed beams of dust, dancing slowly in the still air. Their hands were still clasped, and they felt like the warmest thing in this room, certain and steady.

Jehan pulled away, a jolted movement with no warning. He looked alarmed for a moment, then confused, then he got to his feet and started walking, slowly, in the direction of the door with his eyes closed. Combeferre followed him, careful to keep his distance.

“Combeferre,” Jehan turned around and opened his eyes, “did you see something when you came in?”

“Some sachets and runes,” Combeferre said. “They weren't yours?”

“No,” Jehan murmured, and opened the door to inspect the threshold. Combeferre saw the sachets lined up perfectly along it when he stepped closer, and Jehan seemed puzzled by them, muttering to himself as he traced the runes, taking care not to smudge them with his fingers. “I've never seen a spell like this, this – this must come from a grimoire I don't know.” He touched his fingers to the sachets – brown linen tied up with string, unlike any spell Combeferre had seen from witches he'd known so far. “Something inside this must have come from humans,” Jehan said, and Combeferre half expected disgust in his voice, but he was only astonished. “Hair, a fingernail, something. This is – I would never do something like this.”

A break, that was all Combeferre would ask. Two weeks of peace for his friends. “Do you need me to warn the others?”

“No,” Jehan shook his head, with strange certainty. “That is – you can let them know, we'll have to do that sooner or later, but it's not... malicious, I don't think. It's strong, and not very clean, but it's not evil. It doesn't feel that way.”

 _Feel_. Jehan always used that word in respect to other people's magic, and it wasn't completely empty to Combeferre, but the actual manifestation of it was something he didn't experience. Only witches did, to his knowledge, those that lived in magic, breathed it, had it running through their veins. Seeing Jehan like this, jolted out of the quiet by a pulse of magic that must have startled him, made the phenomenon a little easier to understand, but largely, it remained closed off to Combeferre.

“It's a protection spell,” Combeferre supposed, and Jehan nodded.

“It's a rawer form of what I've been looking for,” he said, amazed and confused at once. “One person couldn't have done it.”

Combeferre had another stop to make this morning, but it was easy to put it off when he looked at Jehan, still lost, trying to somehow comprehend a kind of spellwork that neither of them had been confronted with before. They stayed, they copied the runes, examined every sachet for its ingredients, looked for scorch marks or residual candle wax, trying to piece together what must have been done. Jehan looked tired and exhausted by the end of it, but wasn't too drained yet to clean his supplies up with the help of a spell – _Little wanderer, hie thee home_ , a flick of his hand, and everything he'd brought rearranged itself, lids flew closed, small bags of herbs tied themselves up and tumbled into Jehan's backpack. When Combeferre offered to walk him home so he could sleep on a mattress for once, he didn't protest.

 

Grantaire was waiting by Enjolras' building, and Enjolras tried to make out why from a distance. He had a faint suspicion that Grantaire wasn't here of his own volition, and it was confirmed when he came closer and saw clearly enough in Grantaire's expression that he'd half hoped Enjolras wouldn't show up. At his own apartment. There was only one good explanation for this.

“Combeferre got you,” he surmised, a little sympathetic, and smiled weakly as he unlocked the door. “I'm sorry. I promise I didn't sic him on you.”

Grantaire looked almost bashful for a moment. “That's not – well, yes, he did.” Enjolras gestured for him to come inside, but he didn't move. “But,” he continued, “this was sort of overdue, anyway, right? I mean. It's been weeks, and we haven't really...” He gestured helplessly. It was strange to see him like this, struggling to find words. Normally, even when he was babbling, he was eloquent. “Uh. I just figured I'd been sort of an asshole for not offering to talk to you so far, so this is me, offering. Although I totally get it if you don't want to. Just say the word.” He winced at his own choice of expression, and Enjolras bit back a humourless laugh. This was a travesty. “Just – let me know,” Grantaire corrected and stared at his feet, now completely defeated.

How was he supposed to respond? He was desperate to talk to Grantaire, as he had been two weeks ago, albeit for different reasons then. Right now, he had to try as hard as he could not to let it show how relieved he was that Grantaire could apparently still be around him without dropping into a lasting state of terror. That was worth something.

“Coffee,” Enjolras said. He'd made up a thousand different ways to say 'Come in, stay a while' throughout his life. This was by far the least elegant one. “Would you like some?”

Grantaire cracked a smile. It wasn't his whole smile, it was the half-sardonic one without the creases around his eyes, but seeing it felt good. “Sure.”

It was a parody of a different kind of relationship, walking up the stairs with Grantaire behind him, unlocking his door, showing him into the small living room that Enjolras mostly misused as an office. He asked about Grantaire's work, even, as if they were vague acquaintances forced to reconnect by some awkward circumstance. The truth was that he really did want to know, even though he doubted it came through: they hadn't seen much of one another, after that night, only ever being in each other's vicinity at the two group meetings they'd had, and somehow managing to avoid ever having to talk to the other at those. Enjolras supposed that for a part, it was his fault as well, for expecting Grantaire to reach out if he did want to talk. It had felt like the respectful thing to do, then, but he should have known it would leave too much room for misinterpretation.

He hadn't thought much about what he would say if he got the chance to talk to Grantaire like this, with both of them aware of everything, every detail that had stood between them before. Even if he had given it some thought, he suspected he wouldn't have known it would be like this, that they would suddenly have such a mass of things to clear up and go through that they wouldn't know where to start.

“I need you to know,” he said, part-way through a polite conversation about keeping indoor plants, because this had gotten unbearable, and it wasn't them at all, trying to tiptoe around an issue and having a range of topics that were off-limits, “I don't – use it. At all. There isn't a perfect way of dealing with that kind of magic, but I know what it makes me, and I'm very used to handling it. I'm good at it, normally. I never slip up.”

Puzzled, Grantaire stared at him. “Enjolras,” he said slowly, “are you apologising for saving me?”

 _Saving_. Enjolras hadn't thought to call it that even for a second. “No.” It had been rash, it had been the most violent thing he was capable of, and in the moment, it had been necessary. “I'd do it again if I was ever in the same situation, but that doesn't matter. I'm not trying to excuse what I did afterwards, because I know that I've severely complicated things by letting him get away, but it was a conscious choice and you deserve to know why.”

The words came out in a rush. It felt just like years ago, when he'd talked about this to Combeferre. Every word was an act of balance, pressed through shame and the urge to explain himself. It had been painful then; it wasn't much better now.

“You don't have to explain,” Grantaire said, and shook his head when Enjolras opened his mouth. “No, I mean it. I didn't have time to think back then, so I was pissed, but it makes sense, and it's your right.”

Enjolras faltered. He didn't have reason to believe Combeferre had betrayed his trust, he never did, but his instincts rebelled at Grantaire's knowing and vaguely dismissive tone. “What...” He tried to clear his mind. “What did Combeferre tell you, exactly?”

Grantaire seemed to catch on to his concern – of course he did, he must be familiar with a similar kind. “Nothing specific; you know he wouldn't, but I'm not – I could fill in the gaps, I've dealt with that kind of shit, too. We don't need to talk about it.” He passed a hand across his eyes. Enjolras wondered if he really saw it that way, if he still saw the things they had in common or if to him, those had been erased irreversibly. Grantaire had never been explicit in the terms he discussed his own past in, but his habit of referring to himself as the family disappointment and the casual self-deprecation he seemed to whip out to hide behind whenever someone brought up magic were telling in their own way. Ever since that night, Grantaire must have started reading him in a similar way, putting things together and ending up with a more or less precise story. Enjolras wondered about the version of him that now had to exist in Grantaire's mind: less than perfect, monstrous, broken. Would Grantaire still adore someone like that? Was it unforgivable for Enjolras to feel sick at the thought that he very likely didn't?

“So, yeah, I should probably apologise for that, too,” Grantaire went on. “It was pretty fucked up to go ahead and demand that you use your magic, I didn't... well, again, I wasn't thinking.” He huffed a laugh. “Seems like I never really do these days.”

“It makes sense that you'd think it was strange.” Enjolras had thought back to that moment so many times, always wondering how Grantaire hadn't been _more_ exasperated by Enjolras' refusal to intervene a second time. “I must have made you feel like I didn't care about your safety.”

Grantaire was watching him, and seemed to be trying to tread lightly when he spoke. Strange, seeing him weigh his words so carefully. “Enjolras,” he said in a soft voice, “I'm – I don't really want to entertain the idea right now that I'm possibly the first person to say this to you, frankly I can't even imagine that I am, but you know that you're not... inherently guilty of something because you have a certain gift, yes? These are your own convictions I'm quoting, you must be aware of that.”

Enjolras tried not to sigh in resignation. It would be best to have this out, he'd known that for a while, but he hadn't been looking forward to it. “They're my convictions; yes, I'm aware of it. And you're not the first person to tell me.” He was the second, right after Combeferre. Enjolras had already known that rationally, of course, but reassurance from others, kindly as it may be meant, didn't do much to erase everything that had come before. He was his own mother's worst nightmare. It didn't feel like a cruelty anymore, only like a fact. “On a normal, day-to-day basis, this isn't something I have to deal with. I don't use it, not on accident, not intentionally; it never even occurs to me to use an imperative when I talk. I've had it for as long as I can think, and I've suppressed it for as long as I can think. Most of the time, I can make myself forget it's there.”

Judging by the look in his eyes, Grantaire knew what was coming. Enjolras said it anyway; he'd been lying by omission to Grantaire for too long, and it had never led anywhere good.

“It's been a lot harder to forget ever since I got to know you.”

Grantaire was quiet for a moment, but he looked miserable. “You know, I meant what I said then.”

They had two “thens.” Enjolras couldn't tell which one he meant.

“If I'm making life more difficult for you, I am honestly _begging_ you, tell me to—” He groaned, frustrated. “I mean. Let me know when it's time to back off.”

Depending on both their moods, talking to Grantaire could be compared to anything between a mine field and a very long, very draining obstacle course. Today was a labyrinth, turning up dead-ends wherever Enjolras seemed to go. If they were going to arrive at Grantaire's disregard for himself one more time, this was bound to end in a shouting match. “Grantaire,” he said, calm, “I'd choose the last year with everything that happened over a version of it where you never came to the ABC any time.”

He watched Grantaire avert his eyes, followed the shifting of muscle in his neck as he swallowed. There hadn't been time for them to catch up on the other part that had gone wrong between them, and Enjolras was reasonably sure that they'd missed their chance. Right now, he didn't want to talk about it either.

“It's fucked up, though.” Grantaire ran a hand through his hair, and it was suddenly easy to pretend the last few seconds hadn't happened. “The way you talk about your magic. As if you're some kind of monster; that's messed up. No matter the reasons, you shouldn't have been made to think that.”

“It's not completely unfounded,” Enjolras said. Grantaire flinched, frowning as if the words hurt him. “In most people, magic works like a completely neutral resource, the way water isn't inherently hot or cold. People use it for different things, some of them good, some bad, but it's both possible. Anything my gift can do is violent by nature.” And violent in the worst way: intruding on another person's free will, taking away their ability to choose if only for the slightest moment, was the highest offence Enjolras could think of, the basis of everything that was morally condemnable. “I've had a lot of time to go over this, Grantaire.”

“You know what? I don't think you have.” He'd never been like this around Enjolras before, so upset and frustrated. Most of the time, he gave the impression that being angry about anything required energy and effort that he had no interest in investing. “I think you've had a lot of time to talk yourself into believing all that fucked up stuff you've been taught, and I think the only reason you haven't been more outspoken with the others about your ideas for public acknowledgement of magic is because it makes you feel like a hypocrite.”

It wasn't fair of him to bring it up like this, but what struck a nerve with Enjolras was something else. “You don't think it could work,” he said. “You don't think efforts to acknowledge magic scientifically would make a difference; you have no right to reproach me for not taking action on it.”

“No, I know,” Grantaire said, his voice rough. “I don't give a shit about magic, but this is about you. You're punishing yourself for something you're not guilty of, you're forcing yourself to hold back even though it's messing you up, and yes, that's pissing me off. Because of course you don't trust yourself when people you rely on keep telling you they don't, and you get stuck with that constant fucked-up image of yourself that isn't even your own, and you can't break off even when you grow up, but it's not fair, and that...” He bit his lip. “You shouldn't have to put up with that.”

The spark of anger Enjolras felt went away as quickly as it had come, fading into nothing. He reached out to touch Grantaire's fingertips with his. “I'm sorry for what happened to you.”

Grantaire shook his head, a wry smile on his lips. “ _Me_.”

“It's not the same,” Enjolras said. “I know it isn't. But you—” He stopped to breathe. “We both deserve better.”

When Grantaire looked at him, it was familiar in the exact same way that it had been that first night in the eyrie, when Enjolras' realisation of Grantaire's regard had taken him by surprise. There was something else in that look, and there had been before, even though Enjolras hadn't been able to read it properly. Grantaire had been starved of faith, had been left to for it for too long, and he was looking at Enjolras as if he knew that if he ever was to find a speck of it again, it was going to be with him.

They were going to do better, now. Honesty was a start, and Enjolras had never been one to give up easily. Carefully, he slid their palms together. “Is this okay?”

Grantaire's lips parted. He nodded, for once, it seemed, with nothing to say.

Smiling, Enjolras pressed his hand.

 

Jehan was careful about mentioning where he'd be on any particular night to any of his friends as a rule, more for their safety than his, but he had never been clandestine about the fact that he was working. There had never been reason to, but things were different now, and the guilty conscience that came as a result of him frequenting one of his trading spots before they had, as a group, declared it safe for any of them to do so, was the price he had to pay.

None of them that had made money with their magic were currently working in their respective side-jobs. Musichetta especially lamented that, even though she also emphasized the fact that without Grantaire there to take her place while she did readings, there wasn't much of a point to offering readings.

Informing everyone that a protective spell of ridiculous proportions had been cast over the bookshop had done nothing to sway the others in their opinion: as of now, as long as they didn't know anything for certain and as long as there were no leads on Grantaire's attacker, practising magic outside of controlled surroundings was too dangerous. It followed logically that when Jehan decided that the best method of understanding the current state of magical Paris was to throw himself back into it, he neglected to disclose this plan to his friends, who would undoubtedly physically restrain him to keep him from going to the back alley he now found himself in.

So far tonight, three customers had sought him out, all for little charms and spells that only took a moment to provide. For a part, he was also selfish in coming back to this – with all his imagination, he couldn't pretend that he didn't desperately miss the feeling of being useful with his magic, of helping even if it was only in the smallest way. He had failed at that lately, and the satisfaction of providing help without asking for much in return helped put him back together.

On the ground next to him, Mae suddenly perked up and scrambled to her feet, and Jehan retreated by instinct, used to Mae noticing that a customer was approaching before he did. From his place in the shadows, he could still see Mae, and he was close enough to hear what was being said when people did talk.

This time, Jehan was surprised when he saw the potential client before he heard them. They seemed to be taking special care to walk softly, but Jehan, judging by first impression, didn't assume slyness to be the cause of it. Mae was waiting in the middle of the alley, patiently letting the person walk up to her. The hood of their jacket was pulled up, hiding their face, and Jehan couldn't get a better view of them before they crouched down at a safe distance before Mae and extended a hand. Mae moved, slowly approaching the figure, sniffing at the offered hand, and not shying away when they reached out to pet the side of her neck.

That little interaction was easily enough to decide that Jehan was going to talk to them, so it wasn't necessary for Mae to turn around and come running to him, pawing at his shoes and pulling at the hem of his jeans. “Easy,” he whispered, and the figure stood up, their face still obscured. Mae scurried back to them and stood on her hind legs, resting her front paws on their thighs, and Jehan was close enough to understand, now: when they reached out to pet her again, he saw familiar gloves, dark and leathern and just a little too large on someone of this height.

The stranger looked up, now, and little but the reflection of dull light in their eyes was visible of their face. “Jehan?”

Now that he was looking for it, he could feel it, too, if only in the faintest way: the same soft beat of magic he'd felt before, strong, rough, but ultimately warm. “Oh,” he said. Everything fell together. The stranger stepped closer, allowing Jehan to see their face, large, nervous eyes and cheeks flushed from the cold. Jehan tried to smile, and it was genuine, although he worried it only came out as perplexed as he felt. “We have so much to talk about.”

 


	7. Three Loose Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Marius finally learns a secret.

It had always puzzled Montparnasse that as a rule, people would regard the night as at least somewhat less safe than the day, especially in the city. Of course, he was also the kind of person that had learned early on that the easiest way not to be afraid of things in the night was to become one of them, and it had taken little more than a dedication to honing his reputation and the right fashion sense to become as respected as he needed to be.

That was one difficult thing to give up, his reputation. He was going to shed it like a coat, and ironically, his coat was the one thing he couldn't see himself parting with. Currently, there was an obvious excuse: it was cold, and he had little else to protect himself from that bite.

The street lamps were still on, even as the night was fading into very early morning. Strictly speaking, it wasn't necessary for Montparnasse to prowl the streets now; he had everything he needed, and he could have done with another hour of sleep. It was a way of saying goodbye, perhaps, even if it was only to empty streets at four in the morning, and even if he had never spent too much time this far north anyway, even if what little sentimentality he still kept had stuck persistently with the south-western part of the city, with the tourist spots and the busiest streets and somehow, always, with Éponine.

His hands were stiff. He flexed his fingers, then curled them into a fist, hoping to warm them against his palm.

The street opened up, now, and any privacy that its narrowness had provided fell away. The façade of the gare du Nord main building seemed to glow, white and large as it was against the blue darkness of the square. Sculptures were glaring down at him as Montparnasse stepped into the building's shadow, rigid, eerie guardians that watched over the train station. Quite ineffectively, Montparnasse thought, because they let millions of people through each year, and all of them could hardly be good-natured. They would let him pass, too, much as a small and fanciful part of him might want one of them to crash down and stop him.

The square was beautiful, especially in the silence of the morning. Montparnasse had never been anywhere but Paris – why travel when the whole world strove to come where you were? – but he couldn't picture a place that could keep up with it, with the sheltering cloak it had shed over him night after night for years on end, with the countless secret places he had called home, with all its haughtiness and naïvety and confidence. It felt like a mutual betrayal; Paris spitting him out like a bad taste, him turning his back on the city that had raised him.

A bus came in not too far from the main entrance, and Montparnasse quickened his pace, going just fast enough to mingle with the handful of people that walked from the bus stop to the station. He blended in to become invisible, his head bowed, his hands cold, and gare du Nord swallowed him up without granting him a moment to look back.

 

_March_

 

Grantaire wouldn't have confessed to it when asked at knifepoint, but in the last few months, he had missed being surrounded by friends at least once daily so much it had felt like a physical ache. The inconvenience of this, having to squeeze twenty people into Courfeyrac's living room that had, by the landlord, been intended as nothing more than a home office due to its small size, didn't reach Grantaire at all. He was sharing a small chair with Joly, who seemed comfortable enough on his lap, and Bossuet and Musichetta were on pillows Courfeyrac had scattered on the floor to turn unfortunate circumstances into an adventure.

Courfeyrac himself was in the centre of the living room, desperately trying to do a headcount before he gave up and raised his voice. “Is this everyone?”

“No, I'm missing,” Bahorel replied from where he'd claimed the windowsill as his bench. “Get on with it.”

“Patience is a virtue. Okay, that's... six, eight, ten...”

This was going to take a while. “How have you been, Joly?”

Joly twisted around to smile at him. “Less busy, ever since Jehan gave up on his 'work day and night' stance. What about you? We miss your running commentary during terrible movie night.”

Grantaire snorted. “If you were going to miss anything about me, I doubt it'd be that.”

“Hm. Your drunk insults of various inanimate objects in Chetta's apartment?”

“Try again.”

“Your kind heart and generous attitude.”

“I'll take it,” Grantaire said. “Sorry, though. It's been a weird couple of weeks, something's always up. Enjolras must have been bothering you with a new draft every day, too.”

“Oh, not every day. But it's a near thing.” Joly sobered slightly, his smile giving way to a more serious expression. “Are you feeling okay, though? I know you haven't had a lot of time to recover.”

“Kss,” Grantaire waved a hand. Not only was he less than happy to address that when about six other people were in their direct vicinity, there also wasn't all that much to say. Jehan had covered him in protective little trinkets the day after he'd been attacked, he'd told his roommate to make it a habit to leave the key in the lock from the inside during the nights, and for the most part, he did his best to pretend that the crack in his sense of security didn't exist. It wasn't as if he'd been the picture of confidence before. “It's all good. Plus, they don't even remember us now, right? Not really a point to overthinking it.”

Joly looked unconvinced, and he'd have said the objections that were written all over his face – _We can't know for sure that the spell really made them forget; The police never actually got a lead_ – out loud, if he'd been a worse person or friend.

“Hey,” Grantaire said, “if you want something to lament, make it my ended career as a harmless street mentalist. I'm going to miss that extra money; bye bye luxuries such as cigarettes or chicken.”

Joly blinked. “Chicken?”

“Okay, everyone shut up!” Courfeyrac waved from the centre of the room again. “Since we've actually been complete for half an hour and no one told me, we'll get started right away—”

“Get on the couch table!” The suggestion came from somewhere behind Grantaire, and Courfeyrac instantly obeyed.

“Right,” he said, from his makeshift podium. “We're going to discuss the ABC question later, because we've decided to start out with Enjolras' proposal. I'll just—” He looked down at Enjolras. “Can I throw these? I really want to throw some.”

Enjolras responded by taking the stack of papers from his hands and beginning to pass them around. “You can all take as many as you like, one or more if you have any family members or friends whose opinion on the subject you value.” He joined Courfeyrac on the coffee table. “These are preliminary drafts for an appeal that is meant to be eventually presented,” Grantaire saw how he mastered himself, it only took a second, “to Mme. Enjolras, Minister of Higher Education and Research. There have been a lot of different contributions, so I consider it to be a collaborative effort, but since I've been the one to put it together, any corrections and additions that come from you are invaluable. I've tried to keep it short – you won't have to get through a lot.”

It really was short, considering how much Grantaire knew Enjolras had to say. Two pages, printed on both sides, in a reasonable font size and everything.

“Some of you were and are critical, even though we voted unanimously to make the attempt. It's been mentioned to me that there isn't a large chance of success in such a small endeavour, and I would like all of you to know that I agree. We have no promise of making a difference with this, and it's a beginning that may be nipped in the bud, but that is all it is: a first step.” He found Grantaire's eyes for a brief moment, as if the poignant _some of you_ hadn't been obvious enough. Enjolras smiled, then, and toasted the rest of them with his glass of water. “Thank you all for making it possible.”

Courfeyrac clapped him on the shoulder as he descended from the coffee table, some people cheered, Musichetta made her way over to Enjolras to give him a hug. Grantaire felt helpless in the face of a display like this – it seemed like the most underwhelming opening to a revolution ever, a coffee table as a stage and a flock of half-drunk twenty-somethings as an audience.

On said table, Jehan took over to talk about the ABC, which was quickly derailed by questions about the person that had become known in the group as Jehan's Mysterious Apprentice.

“First of all,” Jehan said to the room at large, “she's not my apprentice and I'm learning possibly more from her than the other way round, and secondly,” he raised his voice meaningfully, “I'm not talking about her to anyone anymore, because it's rude and there's no reason for it, you know all you need to know, except – Baron Marius Pontmercy, where are you? _You_ I need to talk to.”

He descended from the podium not five minutes after he'd climbed onto it, and Courfeyrac, acknowledging the hopelessness of the situation, called a break.

It was lucky timing for Grantaire, who had come here directly from work and was desperate for some fresh air. Courfeyrac's place had a balcony, accessible from the kitchen, and it was still cold enough for no one else to be there, even as the rest of the apartment was cramped.

Grantaire leaned over the railing and breathed the cold air, letting it clear his mind. The balcony faced the backyard rather than the street, and while it wasn't pretty, it was quiet, and Grantaire, little as some of his friends may believe it, could appreciate that.

He heard the balcony door open and, already half-annoyed, prepared for being disturbed.

“Hey.” That was Enjolras' voice, unmistakable and close. Grantaire smiled weakly, raising a hand in greeting.

“Hi.”

“Part of me had tricked itself into thinking you might have come here to read the proposal in peace.”

Grantaire laughed. “Did you add anything since the last time you sent it around? Which was... four in the afternoon, yesterday?”

“Yes, I made some minor changes at the last minute.” Enjolras leaned on the railing next to him. “It's an important issue. Devil's in the details, with those.”

The moment seemed to precious to waste on politics. Grantaire had things to say – of course he did, Enjolras had his mind set on taking steps toward fundamentally changing the whole western world, and he didn't seem to think it was a bad idea at all – but they were all unimportant when after everything, Enjolras still sought him out, even when his work for the day was done.

“You know,” Enjolras said, eyes wandering across the view of the yard, “there's a conversation we still haven't had.”

Enjolras never let anything go. “I was going to say I didn't want to have it,” Grantaire said, not trying to catch Enjolras' gaze. “That night, I mean. If you need me to explain myself or apologise, I will, but otherwise – it would be a little easier on me not to hear what you had to say. Which makes me sound like an awful person, and I'm sorry, but, you know.”

He could tell that Enjolras was looking at him now, and that was another thing about him. Enjolras wasn't too lazy and disengaged for serious confrontations. “What do you think I was going to say?”

“Things you didn't have to,” Grantaire said and shrugged. “Give reasons, try to explain, maybe an attempt to make me feel better. You're a good person, and you'd have made a valiant effort to be a good rebuffer, but that's not necessary, you know? I'm not an asshole. Just no is enough.”

Enjolras took a while to answer, the ten seconds of silence giving Grantaire plenty of time to convince himself he'd just said something that had made everything worse. “I haven't really dated so far,” Enjolras said then, and Grantaire finally raised his eyes. Enjolras looked thoughtful. “There's no ethical way of letting come someone so close to you while hiding an ability like mine, and I'll be completely honest in saying that I'd never met anyone who would have made me consider crossing that line. Not,” he added quickly, “by dating them anyway and ignoring the breach of trust, but by making myself vulnerable in telling them. No one has ever given me reason to even think of that as an option.” He took a small step closer, his eyes now on his own hands. “You did.”

Grantaire stopped breathing.

“That's what I was going to say; I was going to tell you. If we've missed our chance or if you don't feel the same way after everything that's happened, I understand, and I won't press the matter, but...” He finished the question by looking at Grantaire, serious and questioning.

In an incredibly small amount of time, Grantaire thought about a lot of things: about how he'd just been in a room with twenty other people who all wanted to turn the world upside down, about how he somehow might have, by accident, become a part of something big, doomed as it may be, about how he could have _died_ not three months ago, and then that moment passed and he decided that what the hell, kissing Enjolras couldn't possibly be the worst course of action.

It wasn't. It was a phenomenal course of action, because Enjolras melted against him, pushing a hand into Grantaire's hair and humming against his lips, and for the seconds that it lasted, it was heaven. For the second time in only two minutes, Grantaire forgot to breathe, which couldn't be healthy, and was left breathless when they broke apart. Enjolras stayed close, resting his forehead against Grantaire's, still smiling, and he was beautiful enough to hurt.

“The others,” Grantaire whispered, part of him screaming and kicking up a fuss because why was he trying to put a _stop_ to this, “they're – they'll want to go on with the meeting.”

“They can wait,” Enjolras murmured. “Oh, God, let's just make them wait.”

 

There was a knock on Marius' door, and he was tempted not to answer. It was ridiculous, of course, because whoever was at the door knew he was in here, but he didn't feel like going back to the meeting, and he didn't feel like talking to anyone. Courfeyrac had asked, before, if it was okay to fill the living room with twenty of their friends, but it wasn't as if saying no would have been an actual option. It was Courfeyrac's flat, and for a large part, they were Courfeyrac's friends.

A scratching noise followed the knocking, and Marius gave up. He glanced at the door as he carefully crooked a finger, the doorhandle was pulled downwards, and the door fell open.

As soon as it did, a red flash darted inside, Jehan in tow. “Hello, Marius,” he said, smiling kindly. “Is it okay if I come in?”

“Sure.” Marius was sitting on his bed, back against the wall, and the bed and Courfeyrac's cupboards were really all the room held, so he couldn't offer Jehan a seat. “I know what you're going to say,” he said instead.

“You do?”

“Your friend,” Marius said, inspecting the pattern on his pillowcase. “She knows me. She was following me for a while, before everything happened.”

To his credit, Jehan didn't try to hide his surprise. “Did you ever talk?”

Marius shook his head. He had never even properly seen her, nor had he thought that the person whose eyes he could always feel on his back might be a girl. It had only arranged itself properly in his mind when Jehan had started talking about the witch he'd met, the one that had cast the spell, and how she'd learned about the ABC by watching it. Jehan's comment earlier today had only confirmed what he'd been trying to avoid believing for too long. “I'm not completely sure what she looks like, actually.”

Jehan came closer and looked at Marius questioningly when he reached the bed. At Marius' nod, he sat down. “It's odd to play the messenger like this,” he confessed. “I don't think I can do it justice. Everything I could say would inevitably sound strange; she should be the one telling you. I just...” He bit down on his lip. “Your magic is very beautiful, do you realise that?”

This caught him off guard. Marius felt his cheeks flush, and he picked at a corner of his pillow, unsure how to reply for a moment. “I like it better than I like most parts of myself,” he said finally, more honest than he'd really decided he'd be.

“That's a start.” Jehan smiled. “It can be inspiring to others, too, the way you cherish it. I think you deserve to know that.”

Marius wouldn't dream of calling himself inspiring. He was trying to stay afloat, and he picked every moment where he felt happy out of his life and tried his best to commit it to memory forever because he needed to, and all in all, that seemed like a rather pitiful way of life. Finding out about his gift had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, and a year later, he wasn't miraculously happy. He was better off than before, of that he was certain, and most days, that was enough, but with his gift that had filled one gap, another had somehow been widened.

He looked at Jehan, who was watching him from the end of the bed with gentle eyes. He was powerful, Marius knew that now, but nothing about him was sharp. And while all of the others were together, he was here, and before he'd done anything, he'd asked every time. How had Marius ever been afraid of him?

“I thought,” Marius said before he could stop himself, “when I noticed someone always seemed to be around me, and because I'd seen so many other impossible things before, I thought—” He laughed, and his eyes stung. “I thought it might have been my father. I knew it was silly, but I also knew about Bossuet's gift, and whenever I looked around, no one was there, and...” He swallowed hard. “I must have really wanted it to be him.”

“I'm sorry.” It sounded sincere, but Marius didn't want to look up again just yet.

The silence stretched out. It gave Marius time to collect himself, and he was grateful for Jehan's complete quiet and patience, strange as it may have looked to an outsider. He smiled carefully at Jehan after a while, the second he felt up for it. Jehan smiled back, and then, for no reason in particular, stretched out his hands. “What do you think of my nails?”

He spread out his fingers and wiggled them a little, letting Marius watch the way the light caught in the more shimmering colours. There was a different colour for each finger, some of them glittering, some more subdued.

“They're pretty,” Marius said. He was breathing easier, now. “Do you – do you do them yourself?”

“I do.” Jehan examined them, looking fairly self-satisfied. “I paint them myself, come up with all the designs... and,” he lowered his voice even though there was no one in the room but them and his fox, “I make all the nail polish myself.”

Marius was about to repeat his compliment, but Jehan scratched one nail with another in what could have been a casual gesture, and – “Oh,” he said, recalling what Feuilly had told him. _You'll think it's a cheap trick_. “No.”

Jehan's smile was a wide grin now. “Yes,” he said, and started showing off one nail after the other. “This one's sea salt, and I know it just looks like white with glitter, but that's the beauty of simplicity, plus it's perfect for the winter – and this,” he showed his pinkie finger, the nail painted in a dark beige, “it has sandalwood powder, which reacts well with ashes of angelica,” he showed Marius the black-painted nail of his thumb.

Marius shook his head, baffled. “Your magic still works with such small quantities?”

“More or less,” Jehan said. “That's why I'm always so fussy about the words to go with it. They channel energy, make it more precise, so that it's easier to do a lot with little material. But the two can't always balance each other out; I couldn't use my hands for everything. They're mainly to impress.”

“Oh, heavens.” Marius sighed. “To think that never occurred to me.”

“Well, it's never occurred to anyone, or magical nail polish would be in every spell book out there.” Jehan looked hesitant, suddenly. “You'll keep quiet about it?”

“Of course.”

Content with that, Jehan got up from the bed and turned to the door again. “It'd be nice to have you back out there if you feel like it,” he said. “But honestly, Marius, some days and nights are made for staying in your room and curling up in bed. Joly gets them, I get them. We're all used to it.” He smiled once more and opened the door. “Nothing to feel bad about.”

The door closed. Marius closed his eyes, taking in the silence and breathing slowly.

Was that something he had forgotten lately, to cherish his gift? Had it only taken him a year to lose the giddy excitement he had felt in the beginning; had he really gotten used to being capable of something so extraordinary?

He looked to the window, to where he'd hung up the mobile of paper cranes Feuilly had given him. The window was cracked open, and the cranes were moving slightly with the breeze. Marius fixed his eyes on them and stopped the movement, trapping the cranes in their spot.

He was going to join the others, in a while.

With a careful movement of his hand, he began turning the mobile's framework and watched as it moved in circles, slow and steady. He crooked a finger, and the thin paper wings of one crane began to beat gently as it ran its circle. Marius focused, kept up the steady flow of energy as he moved on to the next crane, and then the next, until each of the birds was moving in a slow dance by the window, all beating their wings in simulated flight.

He hadn't forgotten, he doubted that he ever would. Watching the cranes, given to him by someone he'd barely known then, move in this room that really wasn't his but that also sort of _was_ , because what else was home supposed to be, Marius leaned against the headboard of his bed and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Barricade Day! I've always wanted to publish a fic on the 5th, and I'm really excited it finally worked out.  
> Writing this was an adventure, and this is me giving thanks to the people who made it a lot easier: thank you, Lukas, for being An Unexpected Beta, a solver of chess-related problems, and my Montparnasse consultant, thanks Adoley for being my Enjolras consultant, and thank you, Laura, for naming Mae. I owe you all. And of course, thanks [defractum](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nyargles) for organising the Big Bang!  
> Working on something over such a long time-span with zero feedback was way more exhausting than I'd thought, so comments (or questions! I know a lot more about this little world than the story tells, so anything that's unresolved, I'm probably desperate to talk about) are super, super appreciated. I'm on tumblr [here](http://prouvairings.tumblr.com/).  
> Thank you for reading! ♥


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